On April 2018 the Department of Water Resources or Biosecurity (Quarantine), legislated law prohibiting goods to be imported into Australia that require an import permit but upon arrival did not have a valid permit in place.
Previous to this legislation, importers could still apply for an import permit even though they did not have one at the time of arrival. Whilst this would take at the very least 30 days incurring in additional costs for the importer in storage bills, the goods remained in the country and eventually were allowed to be imported.
This legislation is still very fresh in the market having customers suffer the consequences when not researching or communicating with their Customs & Forwarding services partners before importing their goods.
One of our regular customers made the costly error of importing a new product for their veterinary science division without consulting with us previously. Unfortunately, the goods did not have an import permit and the goods were seized at the airport.
Whilst the package coming from China only weighed 1.5kg it was worth AU$6000.
The customer not only lost over AU$1000 dollars in freight and local import charges they then had to negotiate with the China Customs department to allow the goods to be reimported back into China. This took weeks of negotiation with their supplier. An additional AU$1000 was spent having the goods inspected by Biosecurity (Quarantine) in Sydney and eventually the goods were exported.
Please be sure to contact us months before importing products that may have a Biosecurity concern such as plant material, products containing dairy, vitamins, pharmaceuticals, etc. Ensure all permits are in place to avoid additional costs and possibly losing your money and your goods! Suppliers may not accept returned cargo and therefore your goods will have to be destroyed.