Surely you have heard about such a thing as "cabotage." It can be found both in the logistics environment, and in historical literature, the media. We will analyze in this article what it is - coastal shipping in the Russian Federation and other countries.
Historical definition
The word "cabotage" comes from the French. cabotage, the origins of which, in turn, in Spanish. cabo - "cape". Short sea shipping is the navigation of a cargo or passenger commercial vessel between ports of the same state.
Historically, cabotage is swimming without access to the open sea, from cape to cape. The ships of many of the first ships navigated the water surface in exactly this way - the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Vikings.
Cabotage today
Today, coastal shipping is:
- Swimming without going beyond the borders of a certain state.
- Transport services (including loading and unloading) carried out by a foreign freight carrier within the territory of another country.
A special type of fleet specializes in this type of transportation - ships capable of sailing in limited areas at a small distance both from the coast and from the ports.
Short sea shipping is a good option in two cases:
- Transportation between certain points by sea is more profitable than rail or road.
- There is no possibility of laying between the starting and ending points of the ground road. As an example, the supply of the polar city of Norilsk with coastal vessels, as Neither road nor railways lead to this locality.
Types of cabotage
Coastal transportation of passengers and goods are divided into two large groups:
- Great cabotage. Transportation is carried out between ports of different seas of one state.
- Small cabotage. Routes between ports of the same sea.
Both types of coastal shipping have the following advantages:
- The availability of shipping, which determines the simplicity and reliability of delivery.
- Low cost.
- Versatility - in a dry container you can transport a wide variety of goods. In addition, many carrier ships are referred to as heavyweights.
- Convenience of loading and unloading containers.
Cabotage in the world
Greece is the leader in coastal freight transportation in the world - this country has the largest number of units of the corresponding fleet.
In the former Soviet Union, specially for coastal shipping, they were conditionally combined in one sea:
- Bering, Okhotsk and Japanese.
- Arctic Ocean and White.
- Azov and Black.
The legal side of the issue
Protecting the interests of their own merchant fleet forces the governments of different countries to make coastal shipping closed to foreign ships. In our country, such restrictions were first introduced in 1784. Then they touched only the Black Sea.
And today in Russia short sea shipping is the prerogative of only the domestic fleet. However, there are a number of exceptions to the law: if there is an urgent need for transportation, but there are no suitable vessels flying Russian flags, then for the sake of cabotage it is permissible to use foreign water transport. This is done only with the permission of the Ministry of Transport of the state, under strict control of customs legislation, and also without the right to call at ports closed to foreign ships.
Car cabotage
Short-sea road transport is the movement of various goods in the territory of a particular country by a foreign transport company. This phenomenon, however, is prohibited by most of the world's states. In a number of others, for such an activity it is necessary to obtain a certain type of license.
The Russian Federation was no exception. After crossing the Russian border, foreign freight transport is obliged to unload all its contents immediately at the first point of its stop - only domestic carriers are authorized to carry it further. Regulates auto cabot st. 7 Federal Law "On state control over the implementation of international road transport and liability for violation of established procedures."
In particular, the law prohibits the commercial transport of goods and passengers by foreign transport between any points located on the territory of the Russian Federation. In case of violation, a fine of up to 20 minimum wages is imposed on the driver, and up to 50 minimum wages on the customer.
Aircraft cabotage
In our century of globalization, unfortunately, the possibility of free crossing the borders of countries by air does not work everywhere. Many states prohibit flights landing on their lands or even flights of foreign aircraft between their own airports over the territory of their country. There are states that do not put such bans. Unfortunately, Russia is not one of the latter yet.
Cabotage today is not only sea, but also road and air transportation of both a variety of goods and passengers. At the same time, they are all strictly regulated by the governments of world states, including and Russian.