American Shipper Magazine

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   Just when you think it couldn’t happen — not in this day in age when communications are instant and regulatory oversight abounds — somewhere along the supply chain someone falters and you pay a hefty price.    The risks of trading globally have always been huge — that’s why we have legal instruments like letters of credit. Companies needed two banks to sit in between trading partners to ensure everything went as planned and no one got hurt.    As global trade and related ...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

On Second Thought with Alan Spear    Most professionals belong to organizations dedicated to their professions, whether to gain certification or accreditation, or to keep up with ongoing trends and technologies. Organizations help build networks of people with similar interests, and we use those for problem-solving and employment searches and often find our most enduring professional friendships are built through them.    Participation in professional organizations has traditionally ...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   The Web-based global trade management software provider QuestaWeb said it has entered into an alliance partnership with AduanaSoft, a Chihuahua, Mexico–based provider of IT solutions that automate Mexican Customs clearance.    Under the terms of the alliance, QuestaWeb and AduanaSoft have integrated their software to simplify compliance for U.S. companies manufacturing in Mexico’s maquiladora industry and conducting trade on both sides of the border.    The single system ...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   This case highlights the importance of clean equipment when carrying ingredients for moving food.    In 2006, Cargill and Ron Burge Trucking entered into a motor transport agreement that included rules about what loads Burge could carry before hauling food-grade salt, and how Burge had to wash its trucks before loading the salt.    In April 2010, Burge hauled a load of food-grade salt from Cargill’s facility in Akron, Ohio, to Leprino Foods in Remus, Mich. Leprino used th...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   During the 19th and early 20th centuries, logs were frequently transported in rafts, and sometimes sank to the bottom of rivers. Aqua Log is a company that recovers sunken logs.    These consolidated appeals, Aqua Log v. Lost and Abandoned Pre-Cut Logs and Rafts of Logs. 11th Cir. Nos. 11-15060, 11-15076, 11-15078. Feb. 15, concerned wood found at the bottom of two Georgia waterways — the Flint River and a tributary called Spring Creek.    While a downriver section of the...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   UPS has agreed to pay $40 million to avoid prosecution for shipping drugs from illegitimate online pharmacies, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency announced in late March.    The Atlanta-based global express delivery company has fully cooperated with the investigation and will implement a compliance program to prevent illegal online pharmacies from using its services.    The government has turned up enforcement on Internet pharmacies because of the health consequences of tak...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   When we talk about technology empowering a shipper’s logistics operations, sometimes it’s easy to forget that even in 2013 the evolution from manual processes to those which are automated is still a required first step.    It’s not always about upgrading an existing system, or moving from a hosted platform to one operated in the cloud, or integrating diverse systems. Sometimes it really is as basic as going from analog to digital.    The multinational supplier of mining a...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

U.S. ports seek more funding, reforms for harbor maintenance and deepening. By Eric Kulisch    Exasperated by the federal government’s inability to adequately maintain navigable channels and dredge deeper in major container ports, some states have opted to front their own money to jumpstart long-stalled projects amid wider cries that the lack of investment in maritime infrastructure is hurting the nation’s economic competitiveness.    Importers, exporters, carriers and state tra...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   Optimism is not abundant in this fifth year of recovery from the Great Recession. Employment, consumer spending, home sales and starts are past their worst points but have not yet recovered to their 2007 levels. In the housing market this may not happen for many years. Similarly, container volumes handled at ports, railcar volumes and truck tonnage are below their historic peak levels. Nonetheless, some types of activity like production and transportation of export commodities are at all-tim...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Suppliers and wholesalers grapple with consolidation, regulatory hurdles. By Jon Ross    In early March, word trickled out that executives at the world’s biggest liquor supplier, U.K.-based Diageo, had taken a long look at the company’s supply chain and were hoping to drain off excess expenses.    Refocusing its supply chain, an effort that could cost upwards of $150 million, would eventually save the company about $90 million a year and help it refocus its efforts in new market...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Terminal operating systems developers use economic downturn to focus on new technologies. By Eric Johnson    During the depth of the economic recession in 2009 came an inflection point for investment in container terminal operating system (TOS) technologies.    Rather than use a downturn in volumes as a reason to retrench on investment and development, North America’s key players in the TOS space decided to double down, focusing on new innovations that would bear f...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   Not everything shipped by rail fits in an intermodal container, gondola, hopper, or box car. For high, wide or oversize loads railroads such as BNSF Railway use specialized railcars.    Products hauled by the Class I railroad include farm and construction machinery, tanks and other military vehicles, wind turbines and blades, pipeline segments, turbines, boilers, transformers, generators and other equipment that require customized p...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Ports, terminals prepare for challenges from bigger ships, expanding alliances. By Chris Dupin    Ports and terminals in the United States and worldwide will have to accommodate growing numbers of larger containerships in the years ahead.    Later this year, Maersk is expected to put the first of 18,000-TEU “Triple E” ships into service in the Asia-Europe trade, and West Coast ports have already been visited by giant vessels such as the MSC Beatrice and MSC Fabiola , with capacities ...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Railroad BNSF and owner Buffett bet on project cargo logistics. By Eric Kulisch    The recent news that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is partnering with a private equity firm to acquire the iconic H. J. Heinz Co. for $28 billion captured headlines around the world, but less noticed by the mainstream media was the Oracle of Omaha’s purchase of two small freight transportation companies that specialize in moving heavy, oversized cargoes for large infrastructure projects.    In Ja...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

First Solar counts on carriers, 3PLs to deliver materials safely to project sites. By Chris Dupin    While clouds have been hanging over the solar energy industry in recent years due to weakening government support in Europe and the United States, executives at Tempe, Ariz.-based photovoltaic panel manufacturer First Solar gave a sunnier forecast for the industry when they met with security analysts in April, saying they expect net sales to jump from $3.4 billion in 2012 to nearly $4 bill...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

‘The transition continues and there is no turning back.’ By Chris Dupin    Container carriers are continuing the push to reduce the size of their U.S. chassis fleets, but their efforts to thoroughly disengage from this business will take time.    In 2009, shipping lines owned about 51 percent of ocean container chassis, while leasing companies held the remainder. Today, the lines’ share is about 32 percent, said Steve Rubin, a principal at the consulting firm InterPro Advisory, and t...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   Thanks for bringing the important topic of the Trendset freight payment matter to the shipper community’s attention.    In my 30-plus years in the business, I have never quite understood why anyone would want to make payment arrangements like these via a third party if it is not a bank. For example, we don’t use a third party to process and pay our credit card bills, utilities or taxes owed to the IRS?    Why is freight different? In reality, it is not. Freight is like an...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Trucking industry’s attraction to future drivers lacks incentives. By Jon Ross    Thirty years ago, when the transportation industry was booming right along with the economy, truck drivers earned a decent wage relative to other industries. Since the late 1980s, however, the gap between driver pay and the earnings of workers in other industries has widened.    Pay disparity is one of the major factors in the driver shortage that has begun to impact the truckload industry today, a...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   Ocean carriers are reaping big savings through slow steaming and using larger vessels, but a Germanischer Lloyd official said significant additional benefits can be realized through adopting improved technology.    Speaking at the Connecticut Maritime Association’s Shipping 2013 meeting, Albrecht Grell, GL’s senior executive vice president of maritime solutions, said despite the glut of vessels, “ECO ships offer benefits in container shipping large enough to justify orders beyond w...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   It’s become an article of faith for some in the transportation industry that ocean shipping’s move to larger ships will be a boon to the environment.    But speaking at a conference sponsored by the Coalition of New England Companies for Trade, Jason Mathers, senior manager of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), said it’s important when considering the environmental impact of shipping to take a “system’s view” of freight movements.    For example, Mathers said last year...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   The definition of “carrier” is pretty straightforward: an entity that transports freight. Carriers are in the transportation business, plain and simple. Actually, it’s not so simple. Carriers are also in the credit business. Unintentionally, to be sure, but they are. When carriers set payment terms of 45 days, they are essentially extending credit to the shipper for a month and a half.    From the shipper’s standpoint, those delayed payment terms are necessary, even critical, to ma...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   The news in early April that freight payment and audit services provider Trendset was beset by internal embezzlement and fraud has struck a nerve among shippers on how best to securely manage their transportation freight bills.    “The circumstances warrant a re-examination of the kinds of protections and safeguards shippers should expect when contracting with any freight payment and audit provider,” said Richard Langer, managing director of freight payment consultancy Quetica. “Si...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Some airports are gaining ground, while others turn off shippers. By Jon Ross    If you want to invest in air cargo infrastructure, the best places in the United States for this activity are Miami, Chicago and Memphis, according to Jones Lang LaSalle’s recently released 2013 U.S. Airport Outlook .    The list took into account not only each airport’s current cargo activity and infrastructure, but also looked at land around these facilities, weighing the likelihood that the airpo...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   In mid-February, representatives from the European Union and United States agreed to hammer out a path toward an EU-U.S. free-trade agreement that could come as early as 2015.    The pact will harmonize product standards and trade rules, eliminating regulatory differences. Market access and new levels of cooperation will also be discussed in addition to the removal of tariffs. These tariffs are currently low, but the removal of such fees would increase trade, government officials s...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

   In the aftermath of the Trendset embezzlement case, the issue regarding the financial risks in using freight auditing and payment companies has become a topic of discussion. Specifically, how wise is it to transfer funds to these companies for carrier payments? And are non-bank auditing and payment firms riskier than those operated by banks?    It’s important to remember that the freight auditing and payment industry has been around for about 60 years. And trillions of dollars in c...

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Franchise-based ICAT sees value in switching out its 12-year-old IT system. By Eric Johnson    ICAT Logistics earlier this year overhauled its information technology platform — a much needed development considering the company was working on a 12-year-old legacy system.    As chronicled by American Shipper in August 2012 ( Franchised logistics ), ICAT has a unique franchise-based model, one that provides a certain amount of autonomy to its network of agencies.    The n...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   The consolidated cases — Asamarbunker v. U.S. 5th Cir. Nos. 12-40246 & 12-40248. Feb.1 — center on the arrest of two ships and their subsequent sale to satisfy outstanding debts. The United States successfully intervened in the in rem proceedings on the basis of preferred mortgage liens on the two vessels.    Two bunker companies, Asmarbunkers and Bunkers International, challenged the federal government’s superior claim to the proceeds of the vessels’ sale. They based their cha...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   Trucking industry claims that most companies are not exploiting their drivers rings hollow to workers’ rights advocates. They say the evidence is clear that workers are not true businessmen with the freedom to pursue customers and set rates in the open market.    The Seacon Logix case is more the rule than the exception, Coral Itzcalli, communications director for Change to Win, told American Shipper .    Change to Win is an alliance between the International Brotherhood ...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Port trucking companies wrestle with productivity, labor compliance challenges. By Eric Kulisch    Trucking companies that service the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are trying to overcome impediments at marine terminal gates and intense government scrutiny of their employment practices that they say hurt business.    The top concerns for local motor carriers that shuttle international containers are terminal productivity and state and federal audits related to the use of i...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Airlines bring Asia-to-U.S. cargo capacity in line with dwindling shipper demand. By Jon Ross    Two years ago, Asia seemed to be the shining star in the air cargo world.    According to the International Air Transport Association, Asian carriers moved a similar amount of cargo in November 2010 than during cargo’s pre-recession peak in 2008. In 2010, Asia-Pacific carriers had a 45 percent share of the market, and though their growth rate fell behind those of Latin American and Middle...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   Last year, a high-volume shipper with strong exports out of the United States saw an opportunity to bring stability to his air cargo business. Instead of using the volatile spot market to secure air freight rates, he signed a two-year contract with a freight forwarder for the 70 percent of his total business that transits through the United States.    With the new business model secured, the company now only looks at the spot market for emergency or heavyweight shipments. The shipp...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Related Magazine Content Lawmakers seek to raise de minimis Refining U.S.-Colombia FTA Circuit board patent copied?    The U.S. Commerce Department has suspended antidumping duties on unprocessed Mexican tomatoes after exporters agreed to more U.S. controls. The agreement increases the product categories subject to baseline price floors from one to four, and raises the reference price to reflect the current market.    More than 600 Mexican growers are presently signatories to the new...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Related Magazine Content Lawmakers seek to raise de minimis Refining U.S.-Colombia FTA Mexican tomatoes    The U.S. International Trade Commission, which is in charge of enforcing safeguards in trade laws, has initiated an investigation of integrated circuit devices and products containing the devices made in Finland, Taiwan and South Korea for companies such as Motorola, Nokia and LG.    The investigation into potential violations of the Tariff Act is based on a complaint by Tela In...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   The U.S. Trade Representative recently solicited proposals from the public for ways to accelerate the elimination of tariffs on various products and modify the rules of origin under the free trade agreement with Colombia.    Both countries are required to give preferential duty treatment to goods that meet the agreement’s rules of origin.    The trade pact, which entered force in May 2012, allows for moving up the timetables to eliminate duties in each country’s respectiv...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   Individuals and companies would be spared from filing customs documents and paying import duties and fees for more of their shipments under House and Senate proposals that would raise the threshold for such requirements from $200 to $800.    The Low Value Shipment Regulatory Modernization Act of 2013, sponsored by Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and a companion bill offered by Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., are strongly supported by the express delivery and e-commerce ...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   The cloud-based global ocean and air rate management provider CargoSphere has released version 4.0 of its CargoSphere Rate Network (CRN).    The new release is intended to provide a more intuitive, clearly defined and easy-to-use rate network for non-vessel-operating common carriers and freight forwarders seeking to collaborate with global agents.    The network now includes what CargoSphere calls a “Guest Sponsor” program designed to accelerate collaboration between Carg...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   SAP in late February released version 9.0 version of its SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) application.    The release came more than a month earlier than first planned, the global software company said.    SAP said the benefits of the new release include improved ocean and new air freight management, manual and automated transportation planning, cost distribution, and additional transportation management analytics and reports.    “SAP TM has been extended ...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   The transportation management systems (TMS) providers 3Gtms and Transite Technology said they have merged to focus on providing “highly specialized” TMS applications to mid-market companies.    “Transite’s product suite is the ideal platform to develop a very broad suite of transportation software, while 3Gtms’s initial suite includes a brokerage system, a standalone rating utility, LTL (less-than-containerload) tariffs along with the core TMS,” the companies said. “Many more modul...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   The containerized shipping industry has become comfortable with a pattern of U.S. imports consistently exceeding exports. However, this is now changing and, as it does, equipment management will have to adjust.    The gap between loaded import and export container volumes has steadily narrowed in the first quarter of the calendar year, which suggests that if recent trends are to continue, the new norm may be for exported containers to outnumber those imported during the early month...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Bilateral trade balances skewed by not counting domestic content in imports. By Eric Kulisch    Trade statistics about a nation’s imports and exports may not accurately reflect the true value of inputs because of the fragmented nature of global production and supply chains, according to new analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.    Technology has enabled manufacturers to increase productivity and disaggregate production to locations where optimal ...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   The requirement under the Jones Act that ships moving cargo between two U.S. points be built and registered in the United States and crewed by Americans has attracted attention from everyone from television stock-picker Jim Cramer to groups such as American’s for Tax Reform and the Heritage Foundation.    American Maritime Partnership (AMP), a lobbying organization for the domestic shipping industry, said the Jones Act requirements have been unfairly blamed for the rising price of ...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   The Agility Emerging Markets Logistics Index that we published in January pointed to a swing from air freight to ocean freight. Overall ocean volumes in and out of emerging markets grew by 1.7 percent at the expense of air freight which fell by 2.4 percent in 2012. No surprise there — and there is every indication this trend will be just as dominant in the coming year, on the back of ongoing cost constraints.    The 2013 index pointed clearly to the trend of near-shoring. It was ap...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   Since the forced budget cuts took effect March 1, federal agencies in charge of overseeing trade into and out of the United States have had to make due with less.    To deal with the budget cuts, U.S. Customs, the country’s primary border agency, has essentially implemented plans for how it would operate in the wake of a natural or man-made disaster. The agency has had to eliminate overtime work and personnel will lose a day per pay period in unpaid leave starting in mid-April. Mar...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

On Second Thought with Tom Nightingale    I’ve been writing this column for over two years now and I have resisted the temptation. I have fought against the natural draw for me to reflect on the state of sales and marketing across our industry and why such an operationally driven industry should care. I’ve written about everything from the Panama Canal to Steve Jobs. Yet, I have consistently avoided the elephant in the room.    The great management scholar Peter F. Drucker wisely sta...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Behind the Wheel with Randy Mullett    Almost 50 years ago, in 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore put forth the now-famous prediction that every 18 months to two years, technology would allow the number of transistors on a given computer chip to double. To this day, his prediction has proven true, accurately forecasting an overall growth curve of technological advancement that has come to resemble a hockey stick.    Moore’s Law means everything to the semiconductor field, but its...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Nation’s motor carriers navigate FMCSA rules for industry. By Jon Ross    More than 12 years ago, President Clinton signed a bill to create the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, tasked with spreading safety throughout the trucking industry.    Almost immediately, the agency set about creating new hours-of-service guidelines limiting the amount of time drivers can commit to working without taking a break, and just as quickly, opposition to the rulemaking cropped up.  &...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Big ships from Europe-Asia trade expected to enter the transpacific. By Chris Dupin    The next couple of years could see big changes in transpacific liner services, as many large containerships now trading between Asia and Europe are expected to “cascade” or be repositioned into transpacific services.    That change will present major across-the-board challenges: To carriers, some of which have struggled financially and don’t want freight rates swamped by a flood of capacity. T...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

   Even with slow steaming and economies of scale of bigger containerships, fuel is still a significant cost for carriers, amounting to about 60-70 percent of a voyage across the Pacific, recently noted Brian Conrad, Transpacific Stabilization Agreement executive director.    Bunker fuels jumped from $450 per ton in September 2010 to $745 per ton in early 2012, and contributed to the poor financial results of carriers, Conrad said during a panel discussion at the TPM 2013 conference i...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

NVOs struggle to satisfy the technology requirements of their diversified customer base. By Eric Johnson    Today’s non-vessel-operating common carrier faces a tricky task: how to avoid being a jack of all trades but master of none.    Any successful NVO — whether large or small, neutral or not — will have a book of business that varies widely in its basic characteristics. Those differences include its customers’ volumes, lanes, origins, consolidation needs, and not least, ...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   What this past year has taught the shipping industry is just how powerful unionized dock labor on both coasts has become in the United States and how much of the country’s economy it holds in a tight grip.    These unions — namely the International Longshoremen’s Association on the East and Gulf coasts and the West Coast’s International Longshore and Warehouse Union – have not only met their goal of protecting the well-being of dock workers, they have surpassed it with excellent sa...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Suez routings to U.S. East Coast increase with bigger, more efficient ships. By Chris Dupin    As work continues on the expansion of the Panama Canal, fuel has gotten extremely expensive and big containerships very common.    One of the results is a growing amount of cargo moving between East Asia and North America’s east coast via the Suez Canal.    Fuel has gotten so costly that Gene Seroka, president of APL Americas, told attendees of an American Association of Port...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Part 2 of 2: Last month’s issue dealt with how importers reload international cargo into domestic containers to improve the efficiency of their supply chains. Exporters face a similar challenge in the opposite direction, putting bulk shipments into containers near ports. American grain increasingly fills containers that otherwise leave the country empty. By Eric Kulisch    Switching product from one form of transportation to another is seen by many as a solution to the equipment shortage ...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

GPA director keeps focus on growth and dredging efforts at Savannah. By Chris Dupin    The Port of Savannah soared into prominence in the container shipping business back in 1984, when Malcom McLean, then head of United States Lines, made the Georgia seaport, along with New York, one of the two “load centers” for his new “round the world” service operated with a dozen 4,246-TEU “Econships,” vessels designed with short smokestacks so they could slip beneath the old Talmadge Memorial Bridge...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   If the act of swiping photos left and right or instantly maximizing Web pages with your fingertips feels blasé, it’s probably important to point out that all these features on your mobile devices were really only brought into the public consciousness a decade ago.    Call it the Minority Report effect.    That, of course, refers to 2002 Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise sci-fi film whose technological legacy has been far more indelible than its cinematic one. The movie brought ...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a homeowner who said his floating home was not a vessel and therefore not subject to arrest under maritime law. ( Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Fla. No. 11-625. Jan. 15.)    The majority opinion authored by Justice Stephen Breyer concluded a structure does not qualify as a vessel “unless a reasonable observer, looking to the (structure’s) physical characteristics and activities, would consider it designed to a practical degree...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   In a summary order, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a 2011 decision by the District Court for the Southern District of New York confirming an arbitration award issued by a panel of the Society of Maritime Arbitrators. ( NYKCool A.B. v. Pacific Fruit Inc. 2nd Cir. 11-4246-cv. Jan. 16.)    The arbitration panel held Pacific Fruit and its co-defendant in this action, Kelso Enterprises Ltd. (jointly, “the charterers”), were jointly and severally liable to the refrigerated ...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   President Obama announced in his State of the Union address that his administration would soon launch talks with the European Union on a transatlantic free trade pact. U.S. and EU tariffs are low – 5.2 percent for the goods entering the European Union, 3.5 percent in the United States – but the sheer volume of trade between America and the 27 EU members is so large that one-third of all tariffs on U.S. exports to the world are paid to the European Union. Collectively, the EU bloc is the larg...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   Forget the Great Wall of China and mighty Amazon River, NASA has posted an image on its Global Climate Change Website that shows global shipping routes can be seen from space because of the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emitted by ships traveling along them.    “Just how much shipping contributes to overall NOx emissions remains an open question for scientists. Research suggests that shipping accounts for 15 to 30 percent of global NOx emissions; scientists are using satellite observations...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   There was no clear market share shift between large and small non-vessel-operating common carriers in 2011 with regard to volume.    Some large NVOs grew sizably, while others lost volume, with no apparent pattern emerging. What remains is a severely fragmented market, particularly in the context that NVOs collectively compete against liner carriers. Related Magazine Content Turn IT up!    “Clearly, the smaller NVOCCs recorded the largest percentage volume increases, comi...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

   The U.S. Department of Justice in December extracted $45 million plus interest from Japan-based Toyo Ink SC Holdings Co. Ltd. and affiliated entities to settle allegations they knowingly failed to pay antidumping and counterveiling duties meant to protect U.S. firms from unfair competition.    The printer-ink manufacturer, which has U.S. subsidiaries in Illinois and New Jersey, misrepresented Japan and Mexico as the countries of origin, instead of China and India, on customs entry ...