Looking after the interests of Spanish ship suppliers

Eugenio Mediavilla, OCEAN representative for AESMAR reflects on Spanish shipsupply

The Spanish Shipsuppliers Association (AESMAR) was founded in 1977, with the objective of looking after the interest of shipsuppliers and giving a voice to our industry in national and international forums, with National and Local Administrations, Customs and Tax Authorities, National Port Authority and other entities and associations.

AESMAR consists of 50 companies with about 80 offices in the national territory. Our members provide services in more than 30 ports all over Spain.

Last February, in our Annual General Assembly, the outsourcing of the management of the association was approved. The manager is a person specialized in associations and based in Madrid. Our intention is to develop the services that our association can offer to its members, by providing professional consulting services in different fields and increasing our presence and collaboration with key sectors related to our industry. It is our interest to take part in the majority of meetings where maritime affairs are discussed, for instance, in the Spanish Observatory of Port Services.

In addition, AESMAR has an executive committee made up of 5 company members from different areas of Spain, i.e. from the South, the North, the West, the East and from the Canary Islands, and a working group for customs and taxation issues.

Our association is very active in customs matters. The new customs legislation, the Union Customs Code, is the grounds for the day-to-day relationship with Customs Authorities, which are in the process of re-evaluating every authorization granted to economic operators. At this point, the collaboration between our companies and the authorities is essential, in order to meet the requirements and speed up the process of aligning our companies to the EU rules and regulations. Some important aspects are under national rules, but we, as an association, are already in close contact with the Customs Central Headquarters and the General Taxation Authorities to discuss the most convenient development for our sector.

Our members are focused on improving their systems to meet the new clients’ requirements with better and faster service, in terms of on-time delivery, stock management, ensuring the quality of supplied goods, maintaining the security in the supply chain to comply with different regulations, as customs, fiscal, veterinary, transportation, MARPOL, ISPS etc.