Maersk’s guarantee policy has trucking companies up in arms
Maersk’s guarantee policy has trucking companies up in arms: The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce’s land transport division is lobbying the Madbouly government to intervene in the Danish shipping giant Maersk’s plans to increase the value of the letters of guarantee it requires from transport companies, which the division says could put freight companies and local logistics players out of business, Al Mal reports.
Earlier this month, Maersk announced that it would raise the value of guarantees it requires from trucking companies that haul its containers in Egypt. Maersk currently requires a EGP 250k guarantee for any container it transfers to trucking companies, but will now hike this to EGP 1 mn for containers of dry goods (with a bank cheque of EGP 2 mn) and EGP 3 mn for refrigerated containers (with a bank cheque of EGP 6 mn). The company said it will phase in the higher LG requirements. Shipping companies, which own the containers, typically require financial guarantees to guard against loss, damage, or theft of containers under the charge of haulers.