According to him, following the announcement of an increase in the vehicle excise tax in the country, citizens began ordering cars from abroad en masse, attempting to beat the law’s effective date, Givi Chachanidze, commercial manager of the container shipping company Cosco Shipping Lines, stated in an interview with BusinessPressNews. Consequently, a large volume of vehicles will soon begin arriving at the ports of Poti and Batumi, which may lead to certain delays.
“To my knowledge, both for us and several other shipping lines, a very large amount of cargo has already accumulated and become ‘stuck’ in Istanbul. As is known, large vessels call at Istanbul, and the cargo is then distributed to Georgia by smaller ships. In other words, if a large vessel brings 500 containers, smaller ships then deliver them to our destination in batches of 100 containers.
This process places a serious strain on the port of Istanbul, which is then compounded by restrictions at the port of Poti, shifting the pressure to our side. While the situation is not yet critical, there is a certain probability of problems in the future.
I simply hope that, thanks to negative past experiences, we have accumulated enough knowledge to manage this issue somehow. Especially since, in this case, we had advance notice.
The increased flow of vehicles is likely to begin as early as next week. Compared to standard figures, we are looking at a sudden increase of approximately 40%.
Since the decree specified that all vehicles shipped before April 2 would undergo customs clearance at the old rate, and those shipped after April 2 at the new rate, we are referring specifically to the flow of vehicles that people managed to ship from the US before April 2.
Of course, more vehicles will arrive than usual, which will cause certain delays. However, I repeat, we already have experience, and everyone is more or less prepared for these processes. I do not think the same problems as before will arise, even though there are indeed many more vehicles because people rushed to buy cars before the tariff hike,” stated Givi Chachanidze.
Customs clearance for cars older than 6 years to become more expensive in Georgia – changes adopted