NEOLINK Announcement | Department of Agriculture and Water Resources – 2018-19 BMSB Risk Season Measures | 6th of July 2018

Dear Valued Clients,

We received the attached notification this morning from the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

They have announced the upcoming risk measures for 2018-19 for the BMSB Pest Season.

Please see attached for full announcement and Key Takeaways below:

• BMSB 2018-19 Commencement Date: from 1^st of September 2018 and finishes on 30^th of April 2019 for ALL containerized goods from the targeted risk countries

• Target Risk Countries: USA, Italy, Germany, France, Russia, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Georgia and Japan

• Targeted High Risk Goods Include: Vehicles, Machinery, Bricks, Tiles, Ceramics, Steel, Stone, Cement, Chemicals, Chemical Products, Salt, Minerals, Fertilizers, Wood Pulp, Printed Matter, Straw, Paper, Cardboard, Plastics, Wadding and Tyres

• Exempted Goods: Fresh Produce, Live Animals, Food for Human consumption (inc beverages), seeds for sowing and registered pharmaceuticals

• Goods Have to be treated at Origin or Destination before they obtain a CLEAR status for release by Quarantine

• Accepted treatment options include: Sulfuryl fluoride, methyl bromide fumigation and heat treatment (all options offered by NEOLINK and overseas offices/agents)

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Measures in the attached announcement are still being finalised – final measures will be announced from the departments website in later July once all processes are completed – for more info please visit agriculture.gov.au/bmsb

Next Steps from NEOLINK and your upcoming shipments:

• Your NEOLINK Account Manager will proactively reach out to all our clients that are affected by the above to prepare on all goods arriving from 1^st of September

• We offer all of the above treatment options above both at origin and locally here in Australia

• Our team will be recommending solutions that are client specific based on the goods, origin and supplier locations

If your business is changing or planning to import new or different goods from the above origin locations mentioned that might be affected, please let us know and we can recommend the correct solutions accordingly.

Please also feel free to give myself or Chris a call if you have any urgent questions.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Dear Valued Clients,

Late Friday evening; NEOLINK became aware by the shipping line of a number of containers going overboard on the YM Efficiency off the coast of Newcastle.

The vessel was travelling from Kaohsiung, Taiwan south to Port Botany when the YM Efficiency encountered high seas and lost 83 containers from the vessel.

NEOLINK is across the situation receiving updates from the shipping lines as to the status of these containers.

If your particular shipment had been affected by this, your NEOLINK Account Manager will be reaching out to you first thing next week.

This is a stark reminder on the value of having Marine Insurance included in your broader business insurance policies if you don’t already have it.

As always; if you have an urgent concerns or questions you can call one of the NEOLINK Directors at any time.

Enjoy the rest of your weekends.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Good Morning Valued Clients,

We have received advice this morning from Port Botany that an Industrial Action has been planned by the MUA across all three ports for Tuesday May 29^th 2018.

Details provided below:

HUTCHISON PORT BOTANY
Please be advised there will be a terminal outage on the 29th May from 0900-1400.

PATRICK PORT BOTANY
Please note there will be a 4 hour MUA Stop Work Meeting next Tuesday 29th May. Consequently time zones from 0900 to 1400 inclusive will be closed, with Yard Operations resuming from 1500.

DP WORLD PORT BOTANY
Sydney update: terminal stoppage Tuesday 29 May 2018
Please note a stoppage will take place at our Sydney Terminal from 10:00am-2:00pm, Tuesday 29 May 2018.
All terminal operations will cease during this period.

Your NEOLINK Account Managers are looking at the impacted vessels that are arriving on the evening of the 28^th and 29^th.

We will be proactively reaching out to all impacted clients, but please feel free to give us a call if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Dear Valued Clients,

Please see below notice we received yesterday afternoon from The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (Quarantine/AQIS).

They have provided formal notice that the BMSB Risk Season affecting imported containerised goods from Italy has concluded.

Any goods that departed Italy after the 30^th of April will not require fumigation at Origin or will require Mandatory BMSB inspection upon arrival.

Your NEOLINK Account Manager would have been proactively engaging with you throughout this process and appreciate your patience as we have done our best to navigate these additional requirements since September of last year.

I know that there are some clients experiencing back log at the moment with the final Quarantine Inspections and we are working with them to prioritise cargo where possible.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Have good weekends.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Dear Valued Clients,

We have been notified this afternoon 2:26pm that Hutchinson’s Terminal at Port Botany has ceased operations.

This has been caused due to an unforeseen labour disruption event and the terminal will remain closed up until 8am tomorrow morning.

Whilst we are not aware what has caused this disruption today; many of you may of heard about the CFMEU-MUA Merger back in January:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/cfmeu-maritime-union-to-merge-fair-work-decision/9517618

What does this mean for you?

• If workers decide to stop working at the ports; the impacted terminals are not able to offload cargo from arriving vessels
• DP World and Patricks Terminals are still open – so all vessels arriving at those terminals have not been impacted as far as we are aware
• This could cause delays to cargo arriving on vessels into Hutchinson’s in the next 24-48 hours
• At this stage Hutchinson’s will advise us at 7am tomorrow morning if the day shift will commence

Next Steps

• Your NEOLINK Account Manager will proactively reach out if you have any cargo on any of the impacted arriving vessels
• With Easter just around the corner; this is a good reminder to us all that planning ahead of time and getting your goods in as early as possible will give us the best chance of being less impacted
• Planning for Easter – your AM will be proactively reaching out to discuss planning for your Easter period orders and your PO’s that are currently in the pipeline to ensure we do what we can to assist

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to anyone in the team.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Dear Valued Clients,

We have been notified by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources that mandatory fumigation is now required for all imported containerised goods from Italy.

Please see announcement below:

http://agriculture.gov.au/import/industry-advice/2018/04-2018

This will be required for ALL containerised goods that will arrive into Australia from Italy until the end of April.

NEOLINK’S Recommended Approach

1. Collaborate with your supplier and have them arrange at their cost prior to the goods being loaded with a certified body (BMSB Fumigation certificate required for Quarantine purposes)

1. If the supplier refuses to arrange on your behalf; NEOLINK has made arrangements via our Italy Branch in Milan to offer this service at Origin. This is typically substantially cheaper than double handling and arranging on arrival here in Australia. Cost will vary depending on the size of your shipments.

1. As a last resort, we can also fumigate the goods upon arrival in Australia. This will typically be a more expensive approach as goods have to be moved under bond to a bonded depot for unpack/fumigation and will then be cleared by quarantine, which can incur a lot more incremental costs beyond just fumigation.

Your NEOLINK Account Manager will be in contact for the clients that we know ship regularly from Italy to proactively discuss the above and the impact on existing/future shipments.

If you also have any future or current purchase orders from Italy that we might not be aware of and have any questions on the above, please also feel free to reach out with any questions.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Dear Valued Clients,

Hope all is well and you have had good weeks.

Over the past month your NEOLINK Account Manager would have been in contact regarding your opening hours & managing arrivals of your shipments over the holiday period. If you have not spoken to your Account Manager; can I please ask that you send the below through the below to the NEOLINK Imports Team (in the To Email):

• Office hours over the Holidays
• Alternative contacts if required
• Any shipments we might not be aware of arriving in December that are not in your Order Manager Report

For those of you that we have spoken with, NEOLINK would have been working with you to ensure deliveries during the festive period are aligning with your closure periods and we are avoiding containers arriving at the port during this period.

During the public holidays/weekends around Christmas there will be collection surcharges from the wharf for 20ft and 40ft containers – please see below:

I ask that you continue to work closely with your NEOLINK Account Manager and ensure we are across all of your shipments arriving in December in the coming weeks.

If you have any questions on Christmas Hours or collections over this period, please feel free to reach out to your NEOLINK Account Manager.

On behalf of the team here at NEOLINK we wish you a safe & Merry Christmas to you and your families.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Dear Valued Clients,

As most of you whom import from China are aware CIQ (China Inspection and Quarantine) are responsible for the execution of AQSIQ (China State Administration of National Import and Export commodity inspections).

This process occurs at all of the major ports after your container or goods have been received into the container terminals and typically takes up to 24 hours for an export clearance to be granted.

In the past 2-3 weeks we have noticed that the below is occurring with CIQ:

• Closer Inspections of goods are now occurring more frequently by CIQ

• The higher frequency of AQSIQ inspections has resulted in CIQ taking in some instances up 48 hours to process and clear containers for export

• Cargo as a result that is arriving late into port and not being cleared in time for export is being rolled onto later vessels

• This is creating a backlog of containers for export and is resulting in cargo being rolled by all of the shipping lines, which is having a broader market impact

This challenge that comes with peak season; means that we will try to work closely with all of you to plan accordingly and ensure this impacts you as little as possible. It is critical that we are getting containers packed and transported to the ports ready for inspection at least 48 hours before the vessel cut off period to limit the possibility that your container will be rolled to the next vessel.

I can’t stress enough the importance of getting your final orders for the year early and planning the logistics with us as early as possible to ensure this does not impact your trade over the holidays. As always our Branch Manager in China and his team will continue to work closely with all of your suppliers, as well as your NEOLINK Account Manager here locally to keep you up to date with all communication on your shipments.

Whilst the NEOLINK team will do everything that we can to ensure that your cargo gets away on time; these market conditions can create their challenges and we will endeavor as always to do everything we can to get your cargo to you in the most efficient way possible.

As a follow up to this email; your NEOLINK Account Manager will be in contact to talk through all of your PO’s that are live out of China between now and the end of the year.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact Chris and I directly.

Best regards,

Sean Crook
Director

Dear Valued Clients,

This afternoon we have been advised that there is a MUA (Maritime Union of Australia) stop work meeting planned for Sydney on Thursday 16 November 2017.

The following has been issued by DP World Australia:

“Please note that an approved stop work meeting has been confirmed for our Sydney Terminal on Thursday, 16 November from 10am to 2pm.

All terminal operations will cease during this period.”

As a result; we expect this to cause some delays in container availability from arrival into DP world over the next 3-5 days.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your NEOLINK Account Manager for assistance.

Best regards,

Sean Crook

Director