A complaint has come from members of the European Business Association (EBA) in Ukraine against the Polish customs that practically blocked woodworking industry products since March 15.
As the preliminary information of the EBA reports, the Polish side is stopping shipments to verify the origin of raw materials used by Ukrainian manufacturers, particularly to ensure compliance with sanctions. Nevertheless, the member companies of the EBA’s Woodworking and Furniture Committee have not got any specific claims regarding document discrepancies or violations from the Polish customs authorities.
As Ukrainian businesses claim, they have produced all the customs clearance documents required by Polish customs authorities, including supply contracts with branches of the Forests of Ukraine state company, delivery notes, logging tickets, certificates of origin, and other essential documents confirming the legality and transparency of their operations.
Nevertheless, despite all the required documents confirming the legality and origin of the raw materials, they continue to delay and block shipments, and the companies have to pay extra costs because of downtime and having to adjust their routine logistics chains.
As a result, production can be shut down due to prolonged shipment blockages, export contracts can be lost, mass layoffs, and a shortfall in tax revenues at all levels are also possible.
Consequently, the Ukrainian government, the Foreign Ministry, and the Economy Ministry should urgently help probe the reasons behind the blockages and find ways to settle the problem.
As the EBA pointed out, in 2023 and 2024 Polish customs authorities already caused a significant loss of European market clients for Ukrainian producers and seriously affected the competitiveness of domestic enterprises by similar actions.
NH Logistics UKR has been offering IOR Importer of Record and EOR Exporter of Record services since 2001 and is a market leader in Ukraine and Eurasia, supporting many clients with their import/export shipments.
Source Link