Scanners for customs
Cooperation between Grimaldi and Uruguay. An Italian ship sailed into the port of Montevideo (Uruguay) on 21 June, when the days start getting shorter again in the southern hemisphere. The equipment it brought will provide the Uruguayan customs authorities with a clearer view and keep trade flowing.
The consignments that arrived in the port of Montevideo at the end of June on board the Grimaldi Group’s vessel, the Grande Francia, included one particularly eagerly awaited shipment.
It contained two latest-generation scanners purchased by the Uruguayan customs services, to be used for non-invasive x-ray inspections to monitor exports, imports and cargo in transit through the Uruguayan capital’s maritime gateway.
The new equipment will allow the authority to increase its overall capacity for inspection and allow it to scan between three quarters and four fifths of the total volume of boxes handled in the port.
The equipment heading to Montevideo as its final destination was first loaded onto the Grimaldi Group’s Grande Ghana in Tilbury (England), and thence transhipped to the Grande Francia in Antwerp (Belgium).
A third scanner is additionally scheduled to arrive this month, again on the Grande Francia. These three units are part of major investments by the Montevideo gateway designed to make it a ‘smart’ port by the end of 2025.
Trans-Atlantic synergies
The Italian shipping line’s contribution to the modernisation of the South American port’s security systems isn’t limited to these shipments, however. Collaboration between the Grimaldi Group and Uruguayan customs authorities began in 2019, when the company requested the scanning of all the containers it loaded and transhipped in Montevideo.
This collaborative effort continued to evolve over the course of the years, with KMA, the group’s local agent, proactively transmitting information to customs, which allowed them to deploy a new risk analysis system that is still in place today.
Regular meetings over the past five years, attended by representatives of the shipping company, its local branch and agents, the Montevideo port authority and the Uruguayan customs authorities have led to the adoption of special measures in the operation of ro-ro vessels, such as restricted zones and barriers in the ramp area.
In addition, all export containers (both direct and transhipment containers from Paraguay) are screened in the port before they’re loaded onto Grimaldi’s ships.
The issue of security is of paramount importance not only to the Montevideo port community, but to the whole country. On its first call the Grande Francia was thus welcomed not only by local stakeholders, but also by representatives of a series of national authorities.
These included economics minister Azucena Arbeleche and her secretary of state, Alejandro Irastorza; transport minister José Luis Falero; Juan Curbelo, the president of ANP, the national port authority; and Jaime Borgiani, who is the director general of the Uruguayan customs authority.