License in 2 weeks
The procedure of obtaining license for some types of activities at sea and river transport will be simplified from September 2. New decree No490 of the Russian Federation government has become the last missing act supplementing the amendments to the Law on Licensing of 2005. Now the applicants will be able to obtain a license within 45 days or within 15 days under simplified procedure against a 60-day period that was typical earlier.
Missing act
Decree No490 of the Russian Federation government dated August 13 on licensing of some types of activities at sea and internal water transport has been published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta on August 25 and is to come into effect on September 2, 2006 (according to information at Rossiyskaya Gazeta’s e-portal). New document regulates the procedure of obtaining licenses for transportation of passengers and cargo by sea and river transport as well as for transshipment of dangerous cargo at sea ports and internal waterways of the country. The decree also covers towing operations. According to the information provided to the correspondent of PortNews IAA at the legal department of Vision Fleet, river tanker company, the provisions of the document enable the Act on amendments to the Law on licensing of some types of activities dated July 2, 2005 to be put into practice. Before that there were no such a simplified procedure for obtaining a license.
The advantages of the simplified procedure for obtaining a license are significant ones: the period is three times as short as that of the ordinary procedure. Besides, the list of documents necessary to be furnished to the licensing body (Rostransnadzor) is much shorter.
Scotch verdict
Today the simplified procedure for obtaining a license is only halfway applicable. According to the decree only those companies may be admitted for the simplified procedure, which have either international certificates conforming to ISO 9001 or civil liability insurance contract. But the terms for such a contract have not been specified yet. The project of a corresponding government decree is ordered to the Ministry of Transport to be developed by within two months.
The Ministry’s department of state policy assured PortNews IAA that the list of documents necessary for concluding insurance contract would not be similar to that of the package of documents necessary for obtaining a license through ordinary procedure. As PortNews IAA was told at Rostransnadzor, the recommendations of the licensing body given to the Ministry of Transport as regards conclusion of insurance contracts were limited by the requirement that insurance liability should not increase civil liability specified by the Merchant Marine Code. However those recommendations consider only sea carriers and towing companies. As regards river transportation and operations with dangerous cargo Rostransnadzor provided no recommendations.
To be tested on everybody
New licensing procedure does not imply scheduled or random inspections. But the inspections themselves are to be preserved in compliance with federal Law No 134 On protection of rights of legal and entities individual entrepreneurs under state inspection.
As it was specified by Rostransnadzor, when obtaining license through ordinary procedure scheduled inspections may be carried out maximum once in 2 years while random inspections are to be held when necessary. Besides, the applicant may be subjected to pre-licensing inspection. As Nickolai Alexeev, deputy head of the sea and river transport Inspection Board told to PortNews IAA, “When considering the applications for licensing received from river companies we usually undertake inspection at the site. It is more difficult with the sea companies since our structure does not include territorial units at sea ports yet”.
The number of inspections is to decrease under the simplified system. Pre-licensing or scheduled inspections are not to be carried out. According to Alexeev, only random inspections of the licensees will be held.
Without rush
Total amount of licenses issued by Rostransnadzor includes about 900 acting ones for sea companies and about 2000 at the internal water transport. Since these types of activities has always been subjected to licensing and the validity periods of individual licenses were extended following each amendment to licensing laws, Rostransnadzor forecasts no high rush about obtaining new licenses. About 300-400 new documents are granted annually, rejection cases amount to about 5-8% of all the applications. For the moment being we have received only one application from Arkhangelsk to be considered in compliance with new decree, Alexeev added.
Mainly large companies will be admitted to the simplified licensing procedure since such companies usually have ISO certificates. Alexei Belov, deputy General Director of ECO Fenix Holding, stevedoring company specialized on oil products in the port of Saint Petersburg told PortNews IAA about the company’s intention to re-obtain the license through simplified procedure. We as well as probably three other stevedoring companies of the port of Saint Petersburg have ISO certificates, so new decree is to speed up the procedure, he said. Other market participants think that absence of ISO certificate is not to block re-obtaining of a license system valid for another year – the period enough to wait until the government’s explanations are ready as regards civil responsibility insurance contracts and to use this second possibility for obtaining a license through simplified procedure.