Catch 22

A clash of cultures. Or bureaucracies?

My mini-excavator purchase is proceeding. It began with my making an initial down-payment of 30% of the quoted cif price of the machine and its accessories delivered to Marseilles after which the various items were put into manufacturing according to the details I specified in my order. Then I had to pay the balance, 70% of the cif price, after which they were packed and shipped to the port in China for export to France.

But it actually began long before that when I did many days of detailed research into what is involved in such a transaction and what demands would be made of me as the buyer. I’ve had some experience of such matters while I was running my own business. For example, I exported an industrial shredder worth over £30k at that time from the UK to Abu Dhabi and handled all of the export paperwork and the formalities for an export finance guarantee, transport and shipping myself.

But doing so from within a business framework is different to doing it as a private individual, which is what I now am since I sold my business and retired. Then I was running a company that was registered for company tax and VAT and now I’m not, so the first thing I had to do was find out whether I could import the machine from China into France as a private individual.

The French customs authorities were extremely helpful and confirmed that I could do so, and also without employing the services of an agent so long as I was capable of dealing with the customs import procedures myself. This was good news and a great relief as although the use of an agent facilitates the processes involved it also considerably inflates the cost, in the case of a machine like mine by the best part of 100% or even more depending on what services they carry out.

So only when I knew all of this and had established the bona fides of the supplier to the best of my abilities by carrying out my own searches on them did I go ahead and place my order. After that I just expected to hear that the machine had been transported from the factory and shipped and after a delay of 30-40 days, that it was ready for customs clearance at Marseilles.

But not so. While it was on its way from the factory I was asked by the supplier for my EORI number which they said was required by their forwarder before the machine could be loaded on board the freighter. This came out of the blue and was something completely new to me. The supplier said that I could easily obtain one at no cost by applying to French customs but that I needed to do it quickly as otherwise the machine would be stuck at the port in China.

So I set to the task. A bit more research revealed that there is an on line system in France, known as SOPRANO, into which I entered my details only to find there’s no provision within it for a private individual. It asked for my SIRET or SIREN which are the registration numbers for different types of French businesses and if, like me, you have neither it only gave the alternative of registering as an ‘entrepreneur individuel’, a person in business on your own account who does not have to be registered, much the same as for small businesses in the UK.

So although I am not in business and certainly have no intention of using my mini-excavator for business purposes as and when I can get my hands on it, this is how I made my application for an EORI number. And was promptly rejected by the system, which insisted that to get one I had to provide either a SIRET or SIREN in order to be approved. So time for some more research.

Luckily although far from perfect, my French is good enough to allow me to do this and quite quickly I established that not only as a private individual am I not entitled to have an EORI number, the regulations actually forbid me from having one*. Instead I found that the export paperwork for goods imported into France by private individuals does not carry an EORI but in its place has entered the code ‘OCCASIONNEL’, meaning ‘occasional’.

I could well understand that for, for example, personal or household goods of someone relocating from say China to France, but would it also be good for items like my mini-excavator I wondered? So time to call up French customs once more who were very helpful once again. Yes they confirmed, that is how it has to be done. So time to get back to my supplier in China with the news.

And that’s when the problems arose. The supplier, or more likely the supplier’s forwarding company, was adamant that whenever they ship goods, they always have to enter an EORI number. And so a dialogue began, backwards and fowards between us. I said that it had been specificfally confirmed to me by French customs that their forwarder is incorrect, the information they are using is wrong, this is not the case for private individuals and the code mentioned above is used instead.

But they would not have it. I have sent them copies of statements made on the French customs ‘gouv.fr’ web site together with specific links to the sections in question and although at the time of writing I’ve been told that the paperwork is being processed I still have not had it confirmed that my excavator is physically being loaded for shipment.

On Friday I asked for French customs to let me have confirmation in writing of the procedure for me to forward to China but as this will not be forthcoming until this coming Monday at the earliest, I am still on tenterhooks.

The question is, what will happen if the supplier’s forwarding company stands its ground, despite being in the wrong? The problem is that with a freighter standing by, time is of the essence and there isn’t much time left for a tit-for-tat dialogue going backwards and forwards between France and China.

Luckily there is an alternative that will break the impasse – namely using the EORI number of a close friend’s French registered company. I would rather not do this unless I’m forced to by circumstances because it will introduce further complications. If their company is registered for VAT, which I think it is, it will be exempt from paying VAT on arrival of the machine at Marseilles, which is what I want to do.

Instead they might have to account for and pay the VAT in their next company VAT return which is how I would have done it if I’d still been in business. This could make things rather messy and is something I’d like to avoid. Hopefully all will be revealed on Monday and the logjam which currently exists will be broken.

Incidentally, readers might like to know out of interest how such a rapid dialogue can be conducted between speakers of two disparate languages like English (or French) and Chinese. The answer is AI. I type a message in English and it’s immediately converted into Chinese at the other end. The supplier types a reply in Chinese and I get it in either English or French, it varies. The process is amazing, very impressive and based on my current experience, works well.

*Further research has revealed that the reason for this is that an EORI number in part contains the organisation’s SIRET or SIREN, which is why private individuals, and even ‘entrepreneurs individuels’ can’t have one, despite the SOPRANO web site suggesting otherwise.