Saudi Arabia shows a potential market growth and the diversification initiative of vision 2030, launched in 2016, aims to reduce the country’s dependence on oil while developing service sectors.  Vision 2030 institutional, and financial reforms coupled with significant investment by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are generating opportunities for foreign companies across industry sectors. Having that in consideration, you need to make sure that your freight forwarding procedures are aligned with the best know-how local service provider in Saudi Arabia. In this article, we are providing you with 4 tips that you may consider before exporting to Saudi Arabia.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• Tip 1: Choose the local service provider who is knowledgeable and understands your business requirements.
• Tip 2: Make sure you know the HS code requirements from your Saudi Freight Forwarder.
• Tip 3: Understand the documentation procedure for your commodity.
• Tip: 4: Choose the capability over the cost.

Tip 1: Choose the local service provider who is knowledgeable and understands your business requirements:

Choosing your local service provider in freight forwarding can be challenging sometimes but by creating a qualification criteria that is based on the services your business needs, it will be easier for you to evaluate those providers and will lead up to selecting The right forwarder who will be able to help you grow your business while maintaining a personal level of contact.

Keep always in consideration that it is better to deal with a local logistics service provider with diversity resources & capabilities to provide s wider range of services through one point of contact such us custom clearance, transportation services, storage & consultancy. Knowing that, it will be more efficient for you to choose the service provider who is knowledgeable and understands your business requirements and at the same time aligning with the global standards of logistics business.

Considering the industry experience and the wide vendor network can be one of the principles when evaluating your services provider especially when they have a proper risk management and accredited with quality certifications like ISO 9001:15.

At the same time, the diversity supply chain solutions from the local provider will ease your process especially when your business requires multi-modal shipments or you need to store goods in a warehouse for a prolonged period, it is important to work with a freight forwarder who provides air freight, sea freight, road transport, and logistics solutions.

Tip 2: Make sure you know the HS code requirements from your Saudi Freight Forwarder:

Knowing that all shipments to be delivered to Saudi Arabia require a “Product Certificate of Conformity (PCoC)” and that must be obtained via Saber platform which is the electronic platform that helps the local supplier and factory to register the required conformity certificates electronically for consumer products, whether imported or locally manufactured, to enter the Saudi market. You will need to choose the local freight forwarder who will be able to obtain the certificate and that requires an expert knowledge in utilizing the platform as the importers in Saudi Arabia usually refers to their freight forwarders to obtain the certificate via Saber platform.

What is the HS Code?

The HS code or Tariff, is an international coding system for the classification of products that will be imported or sold in the Market. It helps to standardize and identify the products to your freight forwarder and service providers.

Your local freight forwarder in Saudi Arabia, must have the experts & knowledge base of HS codes and related requirements for you to obtain the certificate and avoid any delays, demurrages to occur due to unmatching details between the commodity and Bill of Loading (B/L) which may also result to paying the wrong duty and tax on your commodities. Also, additional fees and fines could apply on your products, or they may become seized or result in being destroyed accordingly.

Tip 3: Understand the documentation procedure for your commodity:

Your export paperwork that will accompany your products to their export journey is sensitive homework because any errors (even simple typos) in your paperwork could delay shipments. Exporting to Saudi Arabia will require to prepare several forms that can be determined easily by the local freight forwarder because they will help you create accurate forms in addition to the compliance with the rules and procedures depending on the commodity you are exporting.

However, if the shipping documents are not matching with the Saudi law and procedures, you will be under the risk of violating the import regulations which could also result in fines or other penalties. These problems often occur because you have entered inconsistent information in the documents.

International freight forwarders are in close contact with the local Saudi freight forwarders for them to be able to make sure that the shipping documents are well matching with the regulations and to avoid negative consequences that may occur.

Usually, freight forwarders who have an internal operating system for their operations can always add value to you instead of choosing the one who is still depending on paperwork. Before making decision on which freight forwarder, you are going to deal with in Saudi Arabia, make sure you question the system they are utilizing internally to manage their operations and control the shipping documents because this will add more accuracy to the day-to-day operations and ensure all the end results are being achieved as promised without any delays or inaccuracy.

Tip: 4: Choose the capability over the cost:

Why door to door capable service provider is better?

• Easy tracking
• Cost optimization
• Single point of contact

Before choosing a freight forwarder to manage your international freight shipment, it is very important to evaluate the capabilities and knowledge base in comparison to the prices they are offering you against your commodity. Sometimes, being given low prices by your international freight forwarder can be promising in the first place but it will end up being underdeliver.

The quoted prices by your local freight forwarder in Saudi Arabia comes from different factors that you need to understand before considering a quoted price as good or overpriced.

The factors are:

• Commodity
• The volume & Weight
• Packing and Palletization
• The Container Cost
• Shipping Line Cost
• Documentation Fees
• Government Fees & Taxes

Having above factors in consideration, choosing the capable freight forwarder can lead you to a reasonable estimated cost for shipping your products without being worried about extra fees or charges that may occur due to uneducated shipper who promised you the world and ended up adding more cost and time to your products export.

On other hand, choosing a shipper with high capabilities of knowledge base, expertise, resources and efficient operating systems can lead you to the accurate results you were aiming for during your planning phase. Accuracy in details provided to you can be definitely helpful to your business and export process to Saudi Arabia.

Why to choose NTF as your freight forwarder when you export to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?

Throughout diversity supply chain solutions, NTF provides flexibility and predictability supporting your business requirements. Contributing towards the sustainable competitive advantage of businesses.

With a team of more than 100 employees as the corner stone of our capabilities, in addition to the next generation supply chain solutions operated by the most advanced and reliable operating systems, we Contribute towards our customers’ respective sustainable competitive advantage.

For any inquiry, please don’t hesitate to contact us!