Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Firework Shipping Problems from China

2008 is the Olympic Games in China this year and this appears to be severely affecting Firework exports as various Shipping Bans have been put in place. In an effort to reduce the risk of bad news publicity during the games because of the likelihood of a Fireworks Manufacture accident the Chinese government have put out unofficial dates during which time Fireworks cannot be shipped around the country.

The irony is that in their effort to reduce negative worldwide media because of industrial accidents they have had one of the largest earthquakes on record which has hit the worldwide news.

Since mid 2007 there have been rumours that China would place restrictions on the movement of hazardous goods. There is a tendency in China to turn to kneejerk reactions in light of various factors, not least the eye of the world upon them. On many occasions in the past I have known whole provinces (the size of Wales) close entire industries over night due to an industrial accident.

Since our own factories have been aware of the rumours, and that’s all they have been rumours - there have been no official documents, we have had the insight and fortune to place our manufacturing schedule early ensuring that our goods are ready for shipping and receive certification in good time. We along with our customers placed orders before and just after Christmas 2007.

We now have some material on the water (on container ships) and making its way to us. During the past two months many of the major sellers of Category 4 material in this country have been restricting and even closing there sales to their customers in a bid to ensure they have enough material for themselves this year. The main reason for this of course is because they have no way of guaranteeing that they will receive some or even any of their orders.

1.3G Fireworks have been particular problems since there was an accident involving shells at a storage facility back in February. The already shaking transport system was rocked by an explosion near a Container Port and they immediately closed down to fireworks, and the accident was found to be caused by 1.3G material. So the already overstretched and over stressed transport system for fireworks became even more fragile, added to that the prospect of a Transport ban been placed from 1st June to October 10th.

Life importing Fireworks is certainly not easy, and to a certain degree nor should it be, but some of the hardness is un necessary and in some cases makes it more dangerous as stockpile of Fireworks gather in China with perhaps no way of actually leaving the country.

More recent rumours have seen some of these dates relaxed and we are fortunate that our items are on the way or booked onto vessels later in June. However I will not count my chickens before they hatch as the Chinese system, as good as it is cannot always be relied upon!

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