As many of you are aware, there was serious disruption in the supply chain beginning February this year due to BMSB (Stink Bugs) being found in mass on arriving RORO vessels from Japan. These vessels were carrying their normal mix of cargo including new and used cars, new and used plant and machinery and other similar cargo. What cargo was carrying the BMSB has still not been established beyond doubt, and this has caused MPI (and the supply chain in general) much concern as to how to prevent such a reoccurrence.
MPI has just released the Final Draft of the new Import Health Standard (IHS) for Vehicles, Machinery and Equipment. To summarise how this affects you as a used vehicle importer, the net effect is that ALL used vehicles being exported from Japan from September 1st to April 30th (the “BMSB season”), will have to undergo additional treatment to ensure they “meet the IHS standard”. This applies to used vehicles shipped via RORO or container.
There are 3 treatment options listed in the standard – two of them are fumigation treatments – neither allowed to take place in Japan – and the third option is Heat Treatment.
Simply, Heat Treatment will require vehicles to be heated to 60 degrees C for a minimum of 10 minutes (total treatment time per vehicle is estimated to be 30~40 minutes with ‘ramp up’ and ‘ramp down’ temperature). This treatment will likely be in addition to current MPI treatment processes being supplied by the current service providers in Japan.
What does this mean for you:
- As of today, there are not sufficient heat treatment facilities set up and approved in all ports in Japan to handle current volumes.
- Due to this, there are likely to be some restrictions in how many vehicles can be treated in the required time frames to be available for shipping
- Autohub have 5 new chambers enroute to Japan at present and anticipate these to be operational sometime soon after September 1st, so this should alleviate any backlogs of stock to be shipped fairly quickly.
- There will be price increases for this additional treatment – pricing is still being calculated and we hope to advise what these will be as soon as possible.
- It is likely that Heat Treatment and additional service costs will come into effect mid to late August (as any vehicle loaded from September 1st must meet the new standards).
We will advise further as more information come to hand.
For any queries, please contact us via customerservices@autohub.co.nz