Chinese Authorities Raid Container-Shipping Firms
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is visiting several major container shipping lines’ offices in Shanghai and throughout the country as part of its surcharges investigation.
According to local media reports, NDRC investigators have been combing through emails and files at many liner carrier offices since Friday.
In September 2015, the Chinese government said that lines had been charging too much for things like bills of lading custody fees, port fees and document fees. In response, the shipping lines announced that they would cut several of these surcharges.
Sources say that one of the companies whose offices were inspected was Maersk.
China’s crackdown on ocean carrier surcharges, seen by government officials as hurting exporters, is forcing container lines to lower certain charges at a time when their own profits are declining because of overcapacity and rate competition.
Eleven carriers including Maersk Line, CMA CGM and Hong Hai Shipping agreed to reduce certain “non-appropriate” surcharges this month, saving China exporters millions of renminbi, according to information posted on the website of NDRC.