MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
A canine brigade in Punta Arenas helps to speed the landing of 4.000 visitors
The sniffers walking along the queue of arriving passengers last Monday How do you manage to make the mandatory phyto-sanitary controls when 4.000 visitors come ashore on the same day virtually at the same time, and the port is not a major terminal. Particularly when the country is a main producer of fruit and other agriculture goods and must act with the utmost jealousy to ensure its privileged position as a world leading exporter.
The country is Chile, the port is Punta Arenas in the extreme south and the event, the landing of over 4.000 passengers from three visiting cruise vessels on the same day. For this purpose the Chilean Agriculture and Livestock Service, SAG and the National Tourism Service, Sernatur coordinated activities with a canine brigade, specially trained to detect produce banned from coming into the country.
This happened on Monday when the Artania, Seabourn Quest and Golden Princess coincided in their visit to Punta Arenas.
Artania arrived with 900 passengers en route to Chacabuco, along the Chilean coast; Seabourn Quest called in with 451 pax heading for Antarctica and Golden Princess, with 2.659 pax en route to Puerto Montt the next port of call.
SAG was quick in distributing literature relevant to the phyto-sanitary conditions in Chile plus a list of articles with regulated access, while Sernatur displayed sufficient staff to address all the inquiries in different languages of the arriving passengers. The canine brigade did the sniffing.
The operation was monitored by the SAG regional director Maria Isable Sanchez Lopez; the regional director of Sernatur, Kluas Thormann and the manager of the Austrl Port Company, EPA, Ignacio Covacevich, all of which were satisfied with the resutls, and an 'exlightening experience' for further situations.
So far this year Punta Arenas has received 45.000 cruise passengers, and another 20.000 are expected before the end of the current 2014/15 season.
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Read all commentsthese dogs are worth there weight in gold,
Feb 13th, 2015 - 02:12 pm 0nice doggy.....
Argentina also has nice doggies, but their job is to sniff out Dollars being smuggled across the border by Argentines trying to protect their savings. In Chile, you're allowed complete economic freedom, including holding bank accounts in Pesos, Euros, Pounds and Dollars. Not in Argentina....
Feb 13th, 2015 - 05:30 pm 0Our dogs protect us from Fruit Flies, Mad Cow disease, etc...
(2) Chicureo
Feb 13th, 2015 - 07:23 pm 0Please inform yourself...
You talk a lot of nonsense just now...
1) Chile and Argentina have almost the same rules for the extraction of dollars from the Country...
Until 10,000 U$S cash, there is no problem in neither Country...
Over 10,000 U$S...you have to transfer via a Bank from Argentina...
http://www.afip.gob.ar/genericos/miOrientacion/simuladorSalidaPais/reporte.aspx
Over 10,000 U$S...you have to declare and fill up a special questionaire in Chile...
http://www.afip.gob.ar/genericos/miOrientacion/simuladorSalidaPais/reporte.aspx
2) It is legal and quite normal to have a Dollar/Euro bank account in Argentina... Most Argie banks offer them...
Don't take me word for it... Google it...
3) The only (big) difference is that, in Chile, any “roto” can walk into a Bank and exchange 600 million Pesos into 1 million dollars...
That's not possible in Argentina at the moment, for obvious reasons...
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