Travel took 38 days, 62% of the rooted plants will restart.

21 rooted plants were sent to Italy on 25 september, they were back in Thailand on 3 November; after 38 days of travel only 8 plants are dry;  13 can restart, that is 62%.

 38 days is a very long travel but the stems were thick and the temperature was low most of the time.

 

It was an EMS parcel; the Italian officer at the Ordinary service of the postal Customs reportedly said that the Phytosanitary certificate was missing. Although we emailed a scan of a paper copy and asked if we could send by envelope a second original ( this is the rule ) we were not answered. I don't think that the phytosanitary certificate was involuntarily lost.

Documents could be lost between offices but there may be a trick : if some documents are missing the importer is no more required to declare the goods at a remote customs center and the Postal officers spare the work of sending the parcel to the Phytosanitary for inspection. So the importer has the opportunity to avoid tax payment while on the postal agent's side less work is necessary. High value goods imported by EMS, or goods often imported to the same address may require customs clearance through ordinary procedure whereby the importer has to go to a Customs center and take the papers ( invoice and certificate ) from the parcel to make the declaration; or they can be represented by an agent who will declare in their name. The customs centers can be far from home.

With the more common pocedure named " simplified procedure " taxes can be paid instead to the postman on delivery. Most parcels with a value under 150 eur  and not often sent to the same address go through the simplified procedure. When importing plants, to some countries small parcels air with a value under 150 euro are safer regarding the possibility of " loss " of documents.

Importers who import plants often to the same address or high value / big parcels should not take the risk of not claiming the parcels at a customs center. Or an arrangement should be made with the exporter before departure so for instance unclaimed plants at customs would be resent.

Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Why sometimes Phytosanitary documents are so prone to disappearance ?

The Phytosanitary documents are reported missing by the importer. Did they really disappear ?

The staff at the Customs service of the Post may indeed leave them unintentionally  ( or intentionally to alleviate work ? ) somewhere between customs and postal agent offices. But there is an other hypothesis :  the importer was told to come at a customs center to take themselves the documents from the box. This is because the usual simplified procedure ( taxes are paid at the door ) was not admitted by the customs and the Postal staff is not entitled to take the documents themselves. Hence instead of paying taxes ( an agent could do it for the importer far from the customs center but the cost would not make sense for small postal parcels ) the importer will report that the post said that the documents are missing. They were missing only in the sense that they were not taken from the parcel and presented by the importer.
Normally the non simplified procedure happens for EMS parcels with unusually high values or frequent imports of plants to the same address.

 

 

Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Post offices offer Simplified procedure and Ordinary procedure for customs clearance

When we pay taxes on imported parcels at our place this is called the "simplified procedure". There is a second procedure called "ordinary procedure". In most EU countries when the value of the parcel is or seems to be above 150 eur, or when the plant importer has to register as a professional ( because of frequent imports of plants to the same address, or large parcel, or high value ), then the procedure

is called ordinary : with this " ordinary procedure " importers have to pay taxes at a customs center of the post ( it may be far ) either directly or by hiring an agent, indeed during an ordinary procedure the postal agents are not allowed to open the parcels and take the customs documents directly ( invoice and phytosanitary certificate ) : the importer or customs agent ( broker ) must do it and handover the documents to the post. http://www.correos.es/ss/Satellite/site/informacion_cliente-tramites_aduaneros-inicio/includeTemplate=COR_DetalleGuiasAyuda-sidioma=en_GB
Most " small parcel air " ( parcels up to 2000 gr ) are delivered by the simplified procedure , but EMS parcels that seem to be of 150 eur value are instead more likely to be delivered through the ordinary procedure. Dividing an import in several parcels is a good solution.

 Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Para importar semillas y plantas de vivero es necesario presentar una solicitud o una notificación

The buyer protection policy enforced by PayPal encourages people to import plants by shifting on the exporter the risk that their customs may intercept the package whenever the import is deemed a professional one ( for commercial propagation ) hence needed registration prior import in addition to the export documents ( phytosanitary certificate and CITES if endangered species ) sent by the exporter with the parcel.

In most cases the exporters of live plants cannot guess if the customs will consider the parcel as a professional one or not, except when rules are made public on the internet like in USA, or reported by hearsay such as those of Italy, where the number of plants ( 12 and 5 ) per week and per address are the limit before prior registration of the importer. ( however customs can see as an abuse the repetitive imports of legally correct numbers without prior registration and delay the clearance or find a sanitary pretext to justify an interception  ).
On the contrary in Spain * for instance ( and also probably in Russia ) there is no maximum number of plants and customs consider case by case the frequency and number of plants to determine if the import needed a registration prior import. Hence the post may request from the buyer Phytosanitary certificate AND Spanish authorization to clear at customs and say on the postal site that "documents are missing" if this latter Spanish authorization ( import permit ) is not provided by the buyer. But the buyers may argue in a Paypal claim for non received goods that they were requested a missing phytosanitary certificate;  when in fact what can be missing is any of the two documents. 
In a Paypal claim for non received item due to reported lack of phytosanitary certificate the senders can always prove that they made a phytosanitary certificate as they have copies.  If the buyers had done a registration, they should also present a copy of the document. Failure to provide such document when the exporter has a copy of the phytosanitary certificates should always rule in favor of the exporter.
Plants cannot be returned in their original state and a great part of the cost is production and administration for a stock maintenance : even if returned live, individual plants are discarded.
The rule that money and goods cannot be on the exporter's side should not apply with live plants for their export to be sustainable. At Aleyagarden we inform on the check out page where customers confirm their purchases that importers must know their import rules and practices and that live plants cannot be returned in their original state or cannot sustain a non as described claim with Paypal; we emphasize again this information in home page of aleyagarden.com, conditions of sale page, this BlogSpot, and Facebook page.

* Para importar semillas y plantas de vivero es necesario presentar una solicitud o una notificación
previa a la importación .. : http://www.asaja.com/files/horizontales/08072013134233_Manual%20importacin%20semillas%20y%20plantas.pdf

EMS cost within Thailand : the rate page

Q : I am in Thailand and wish to receive a parcel by EMS of 530 gr.
What is the final EMS cost ?. 

A : Well.. let's have a look at the rate page :

Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Find all Aleyagarden posts on http://aleyagarden-blog.blogspot.com

VAT refund in Thailand

As a tourist I can get a VAT refund at the airport before checking in if I show the PP10 form filled the day of my purchase at the authorized shop. Does that work for plant shops ? If, as a tourist I buy in Thailand plants from abroad in a postal parcel and pay the VAT, will I get it refunded at the airport if I show the tax receipt from the customs ?

The answer is no to both questions : the goods must be purchased at shops in Thailand that are in the VAT refund scheme for tourists, hence can provide the PP10 form. Usually plant shops don't pay directly the VAT to the tax department, hence they can't be in the scheme. Here is a phone number at the Customs of Pukhet for quick answers to common inquiries : 076 211 105-4


Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Find all Aleyagarden posts on http://aleyagarden-blog.blogspot.com

Citrus not allowed to EU countries

Several Citrus plants are available in Thailand. But if you travel back to Europe you are not allowed by rule of your state in the EU to travel with ( or import ) citrus.


Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Find all Aleyagarden posts on http://aleyagarden-blog.blogspot.com