Customs Bulletin: Transit Possibilities of borderline TLCs

Vadim VAZYURO, Head of the Main Department of Development and Sales, RUE "Beltamozhservice"

The Republic of Belarus is located at the crossroads of the main transport routes connecting the states of Western Europe with the East, the regions of the Black Sea coast with the Baltic countries. The territory of Belarus is crossed by two trans-European transport corridors, defined according to the international classification West-East and North-South.

According to the statistics of the State Border Committee, in 2020, about 1.5 million trucks entered the Republic of Belarus in the transit direction (about 1.3 million left). According to the National Statistical Committee of Belarus, 159.8 million tons of cargo were transported through our country by road in 2020.

The formation of the common border of the Eurasian Economic Union has an impact on increasing the transit potential of Belarus and creates opportunities for the export of logistics services.

The presence of transport communications with significant throughput in international and republican traffic, the fulfillment of modern technologies for the movement of goods, a good level of containerization make it possible to achieve a high quality of the logistics process, to ensure the speed of delivery and safety of goods along the route.

In 2020, 124.9 million tons of cargo, 1 million TEU were transported by rail through Belarus. Daily run up to ten container trains.

At the beginning of 2021 there are 58 logistics centers in Belarus, 11 of them provide priority transport and logistics services, 17 perform wholesale and logistics (distribution) functions. The rest of the terminals concentrated their efforts on the provision of warehouse and cargo handling services.

Temporary storage warehouses, customs warehouses are open on the territory of 21 logistics centers, operating mainly in the Minsk region.

Out of 58 logistics centers, 17 have state ownership. The rest of it were created with the participation of national and foreign investors. There are18 multimodal logistics centers.

Either a number of them lease their warehouse space to third parties without providing them any services, or they have organized industrial or service activities in these areas.

Taking into account the geographical location of the Republic of Belarus, of course, border transport and logistics terminals play an important role in the development of the country's transit capabilities. There are five same terminals in the country.

For reference: RUE "Beltamozhservice" has 8 modern transport and logistics centers, two of which are borderline: TLC "Brest-Beltamozhservice-2" and TLC "Kamenny Log - Beltamozhservice". Both terminals were put into operation as part of the implementation of the Development Program for the logistics system of the Republic of Belarus.

Border terminals are a means of achieving effective functioning of the logistics system of the Republic of Belarus as a transit state for a number of reasons:

- the possibility of organizing consolidation hubs at these facilities for processing transit trade flows;

- providing high-quality logistics services for transit traffic in the direction of the EU - RF - China and vice versa for carriers;

- provision of services for marking, sorting and other terminal processing of goods;

- the possibility of organizing crossover;

- the possibility of organizing and exercising control functions of customs authorities at border terminals, which leads to a decrease in the load on the republican point of customs clearance and, as a result, to an increase in throughput;

- optimal application of transit-free technology.

On the example of transport and logistics centers of RUE "Beltamozhservice" taking into account their location, one can assess the advantages of it.

TLC "Brest - Beltamozhservice-2" is a modern logistics center, which is located 500 meters from one of the largest republican customs clearance point "Kozlovichi". The terminal has a total area of covered warehouses of over 16 thousand m2, a warehouse infrastructure area of over 30 thousand m2 and is able to accommodate 180 vehicles in an open area. Racking system capacity - 12 thousand pallet places.

The terminal is equipped with modern equipment for warehouse handling, refrigeration chambers (temperature regime from 0 ° C to 10 ° C) with a capacity of 832 pallet spaces for perishable goods.

TLC "Kamenny Log - Beltamozhservice" is located 1.5 km from the republican checkpoint "Kamenny Log". The terminal has a total area of over 22 thousand sq. km., the area of covered warehouses is 2.5 thousand sq. m.

Since June, a waiting area with an electronic queue system at the Kamenny Log checkpoint has been operating at the terminal's facilities. Modern technical means allow us to provide quality services for warehouse handling and storage of goods.

Specialists of RUE “Beltamozhservice” provide a full range of logistics services: customs representative, surety to customs authorities, financial guarantees for the transportation of goods and vehicles under customs control throughout the European Union (T1), electronic preliminary notification of customs authorities, freight forwarding activities.

In addition, it is possible to provide complex logistics services for the transit processing of goods, carry out loading and unloading operations of any complexity and services for the consolidation, storage and sorting of goods, carry out operations for the labeling of various goods (for example, shoes, automobile tires), as well as marking with excise brands of alcoholic beverages.

In 2019, more than 1.79 million units of alcoholic beverages were marked, in 2020 - more than 2.49 million. There is an increase in the provision of services for marking with control (identification) marks: in 2019 - 598.8 thousand units of goods were marked, in 2020 -m - 851.6 thousand.

All terminals have equipment for marking goods with control marks using datamatrix technology, equipment for marking alcoholic beverages with excise stamps in accordance with the requirements of blotting accounting, technical means for processing and sorting second-hand goods.

In order to expand the volume of services provided for the labeling of goods, the TLC of the enterprise carries out labeling with excise stamps of alcoholic beverages traveling to the Russian Federation, in accordance with the requirements of the USAIS accounting. The time for pasting a batch of alcohol with a volume of 30 thousand bottles does not exceed more than one day.

It should be noted the main directions of development and improvement of the border terminals of the enterprise:

1. Taking into account the significant volume of goods transported by rail and the absence of a specialized border logistics center in the Republic of Belarus that could provide services for goods transported by rail, the option of organizing a multimodal terminal will be considered.

2. We are planning to maximize the use of the warehouse infrastructure near the RCCP "Kozlovichi" in order to provide services for the transfer / transshipment of transit cargo.

3. Issues of construction of a TLC are being worked out near Vitebsk. Options for the provision of warehouse services are being studied in the Braslav region (near the RCCP "Urbany").

4. There are plans to build / rent a transport and logistics center in the Minsk region with the ability to handle cargo arriving by rail.