What are risks of making air shipments when using documents against payment method?

Documents Against Payment (D/P) is a payment method used in international trade transactions.

This payment method has couple of alternative names such as documentary collections, cash against documents, CAD and documents against acceptance.

There are various advantages of using this payment method in export and import operations.

Some of the advantages of documentary collection payment method can be mentioned as follows:

• Documentary collection payment method is easy. 
• Documentary collection is relatively a cheap payment option comparing to letters of credit. 
• Documentary collection is a fast international payment type comparing to letters of credit.

Despite all of these advantages stated above, documentary collection payment has couple of disadvantages, which have to be burdened by the exporters.

What is the difference between a bill of lading which is signed as carrier and as agent of the carrier?

A bill of lading could be signed by one of the entities stated below:

• the carrier or 
• an agent of the carrier or 
• the master or 
• an agent of the master or 
• a freight forwarder.

The party that has signed the bill of lading must indicate its signing capacity.

For example, if the carrier has signed the bill of lading, then it must be indicated on the bill of lading (B/L) that it has been signed by the carrier.

Likewise if the master has signed the bill of lading, then it must be indicated on the bill of lading that it has been signed by the master.

Shipped on board and clean on board bill of lading

I would like to explain the difference between shipped on board bill of lading and clean on board bill of lading on this page. 

The reason I would like to write about this topic is that some issuing banks demand "shipped on board" bills of lading, whereas others demand "clean on board" bills of lading under "letters of credit" payments.

Exporters are getting confused, when carriers issue a "shipped on board" bill of lading where the letter of credit requires a "clean on board" bill of lading or vice versa.

What does shipped on board mean on a bill of lading?

Bill of lading is a traditional transport document, which has been issued by the carriers for sea shipments that has been taken place between one sea port to another.

Historically, there are two main types of bills of lading available on the market in terms of scope of issuance.

• Received for shipment bills of lading 
• Shipped on board bills of lading

Today I would like to explain the meaning and function of an on board bill of lading and received for shipment bill of lading.

What is the transit time between Busan Port and Gothenburg Port?

Port of Gothenburg is not one of the top 100 biggest container ports in the world, but it plays very important role in Sweden's international trade. 

Gothenburg Port Authority describes the importance of the port to Sweden as follows: 

"Sea transport is used for 90 per cent of the Sweden's imports and exports. Around a third of foreign trade passes through the Port of Gothenburg as it is the only port in Sweden with the capacity to receive the very largest ocean-going container vessels."  

"The fact is that every day every Swedish person touch something that has passed through the Port of Gothenburg."

Busan Port is one of the biggest container ports in the world. It is the number 1 container port of South Korea and 5th biggest container port of the world by handling 17.6million TEU in 2013.

How long does it take for a container vessel to come from Busan Port, South Korea to Gothenburg Port, Sweden?

Today I would like to explain the transit time between Busan Port, South Korea and Gothenburg Port, Sweden.