Health checks: "Serious delays at Italian ports"

Confetra has raised concerns about health checks on goods entering Italian ports and airports. "Despite the constant commitment of the Ministry of Health and the relevant managers, with whom we have always maintained a constructive dialogue," says Carlo De Ruvo, president of the Italian General Confederation of Transport and Logistics, "we are reporting, with growing concern, a serious critical issue: the shortage of health personnel assigned to check goods entering the country is significantly compromising the efficiency of import operations. This is an extremely urgent situation."

The problem, "which has been present for years in several Italian ports and airports," De Ruvo continues, "is now particularly alarming in the port of Genoa, the country's main maritime hub, where increasingly serious delays in container customs clearance are being experienced due to a shortage of healthcare personnel. These delays are generating additional costs that have become unsustainable for logistics operators and, ultimately, for Italian importers, with a direct impact on the competitiveness of the entire economic system."

According to Confetra, this is a structural problem: "The public administration," the president explains, "faces enormous difficulties in attracting new resources, particularly qualified healthcare professionals, due to uncompetitive salary levels, especially at peripheral healthcare offices."

The risk, already real in some sectors, is that goods will be diverted to ports and airports in other European countries. This phenomenon, De Ruvo explains, "is already occurring for some products. This leads to increased import costs, a loss of competitiveness for our companies, and a consequent reduction in national turnover."

Not only that: "Extending land routes has a greater environmental impact and, above all, shifts responsibility for health controls to other countries, which are often less rigorous and effective than those carried out in Italy. This results in fewer guarantees for consumer health and safety. In short, we lose out on all fronts."