Planet ComTrans - Morocco - Project Cargo Weekly

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Interview with

Capt. Yahya Samer

General Manager

Can you tell us about the history and ownership of Planet ComTrans?

Planet ComTrans is a Moroccan company, active in project cargo, freight forwarding, contract logistics and ship agency.

The team has a proven track record in project management and come highly recommended from end customers for the service quality. Most important is the care that the team show at different hierarchical levels and at different stages of the job, such as freight and chartering solutions, stevedoring, lifting, trucking and customs, with the sole purpose of providing both a good image and service.

Our expertise is the result of having caring and diligent teams with previous experiences in mega-project management, representing some of the world’s most major container and project shipping lines.

Morocco has several ports. Can you tell us more about the ports in your country? Which ones are mainly used for handling project cargo?

Morocco has a diverse port infrastructure adapted to the different needs of each region the port serves.

Tangier Med has nine-million-TEU capability. It is the largest port on the Mediterranean and in Africa by capacity and one of the top twenty ports worldwide. The port is active in the containers sector, break-bulk terminal and RORO terminal for the car industry.

Casablanca remains the most important port in Morocco for domestic cargo because of the importance of the port hinterland and industrial network around. This port has a 450-ha capacity and eight kilometers of quay. It can host up to forty ships at the same time.

More to the south, Agadir port serves the southern area and is active in all kind of trades, including not limited to: citrus, fish, minerals, bulk cargo (ore and cereals), general cargo (wood, steel, tubes, paper kraf etc.). It has a capacity of 45-ha and 1300m of quay.

How about customs clearance in Morocco? Is that difficult? Do you have any rules of thumb for exporters to Morocco that you can share?

The customs procedure in Morocco is among the most organized worldwide, provided importers abide by the rules. We would like to call the attention of Cross Ocean’s different partners to the importance of adding on Bls and manifests at ports of loading. You must supply both the importer’s fiscal identification number (or ICE as it’s called in Morocco), and the product HS code.

With the great location of Morocco at the crossroads between the Mediterranean and Atlantic. I would suspect that overseas nations such as China, India and Korea would have big investments and production facilities in your country. Can you tell us a bit more?

Indeed, Morocco has signed several free trade agreements with the US, Europe, Turkey and the UAE. Also, investments from different countries have really increased over the last decade, including mega-companies active in:
Automotive
Infrastructure
Telecommunication
Pharma
Retail

What is Planet ComTrans’s experience in handling project and oversized cargo? Could you provide us with some examples?

Planet ComTrans has a lot of experience on both local and international levels. One example is the transport of oversized industrial machinery and its equipment by truck from northern Europe to Morocco.

Do you belong to any freight forwarding networks currently? Do you find it useful?

We do belong to the Cross Ocean freight forwarding network. We find it useful for the quality of the network partners and mainly for the financial protection it grants.