News & Insights

Our alerts, news and guides embrace all transport modes and explore global developments across all aspects of the supply chain, to keep you informed and guide decision making.

Export declarations start CDS migration

HMRC data showed that more than a quarter of businesses had not signed up to their new Customs Declaration Service (CDS) at the start of the year and with the migration already started  thousands of businesses could potentially find themselves cut adrift and unable to export. CDS has been in... Read more

Government’s 10 benefits of Trans-Pacific accession

The UK has reached an agreement to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) with Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, Peru, Malaysia and Chile, supporting tariff-free trade with a number of nations with which the UK does ... Read more

Nhava Sheva congestion may last till November

The port of Nhava Sheva, is the second largest container port in India and repairs and replacement of gantry cranes are reducing terminal capacity by 50%, which is expected to possibly last until October or November. Container traffic through India's Nhava Sheva Port (JNPT) is facing bottlenec... Read more

Supporting the food, drink and automotive sectors

Subscribe Now × [everest_form id="3691"] Metro operate in a range of industry sectors and are active members of trade associations that represent our clients’ interests, providing free advice on freight, supply chain and lo... Read more

Vessel schedule reliability falls

The reliability of container shipping lines’ vessel schedules dropped at the beginning of 2023, with Sea-Intelligence reporting that schedule reliability improved for the majority of 2022, but a fall of 3.8% in January meant reliability sat at just 52.6%. The vessel schedule reliability of a... Read more

RoRo car carrier market attracting container shipping lines

After a long recovery from the impacts of the COVID19 pandemic the RoRo Car Carrier sector recorded high freight rates and a surge in demand, that has continued through 2022 and is now attracting new market entrants from the container shipping sector. Five consecutive years of low orders for p... Read more

Carbon targets may add more cost for shippers

Environmental efficiency, more ambitious carbon emission targets, the possible introduction of a carbon levy and the EU’s emissions trading scheme all require investment by the container shipping lines’ and they will want to pass that investment and increased fuel cost on. Just weeks after... Read more

Supply chains returning to just-in-time focus

The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply’s (CIPS) Procurement Futures conference brought together the most influential procurement professionals to figure out how to make supply chains more resilient, as buyers consider returning to just-in-time strategies, as port congestion eases. ... Read more

Award recognition for CuDoS customs platform

We are delighted to win Gold at the ‘Stevie' Sales and Customer Service Awards 2023, with our key technology partner, WNS, for their ground-breaking contribution to our CuDoS customs platform, in digitising customs declarations, enhancing customer experience and ensuring a smooth transitio... Read more

Important notice for exporters; Change to Certificate of Origin

The Certificate of Origin (CoO) is an important international trade document which certifies that goods are wholly obtained, produced, manufactured or processed in a particular country. The current UK Certificates of Origin will be changing from 1st April. The CoO declare the ‘nationali... Read more

Critical export customs changes draw near

HMRC will be writing to traders to raise awareness that all export declarations currently made through CHIEF, must be made through the Customs Declaration Service (CDS) by 30th November 2023 and that they must register for the service. The customs handling of import and export freight system (... Read more

New Customs framework agreed for Northern Ireland shipments

Business groups have welcomed the ‘Windsor framework’ deal announced on the 27th February, between the UK and EU over trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, which offer a considerable reduction in checks and documents to move goods across the Irish Sea and into the province. To avoid a ... Read more