How we export: process, documents and compliance

From enquiry to container in five steps

Our group has made plywood in Perumbavoor since 1986. The export desk runs the same way: to the spec, on the schedule, container after container. The path from first message to sailing is five steps.

Commercial terms

Export quotes are in US dollars, under Incoterms 2020, and always name the place or port the term applies to. Which term is right depends on how the goods are handed over.

Payment by bank transfer (T/T). For indicative ex-factory ranges (ex-factory Perumbavoor, GST and freight extra) see the plywood price guide — export quotes are built per enquiry against current rates, so confirm before ordering.

FCA or FOB

FCA [named place] is normally the right term for a sealed container. Delivery and risk transfer happen when the container is handed to the carrier you nominate — at our premises once we have loaded your collecting vehicle, or at a Cochin terminal once the goods are there at the carrier’s disposal. We clear the goods for export. You contract the main carriage.

FOB Cochin applies where we are responsible for delivering the goods on board the vessel you nominate. Risk transfers when the goods are on board, and we carry the cost to that point. You contract the main carriage here too. Many letters of credit still call for FOB, and we quote it on request.

Under Incoterms 2020 an FCA sale can still produce an on-board bill of lading: you instruct your carrier to issue one to us after loading. That has to be agreed in the booking, because the carrier is not obliged to do it.

Demurrage and detention are charged under the carriage, equipment and terminal contracts, not by the Incoterm. Who pays depends on who booked, the free time, and what caused the delay. The quotation states how origin delay, late vessel nomination, customs holds and late equipment return are allocated.

What you see before the container sails

You should not have to wait for the container doors to open at destination to know what is inside. Three things close that gap.

• Pre-shipment inspection. Welcome, by you or any third-party agency you appoint. We hold the goods for inspection before loading.
• Loading photos and video. Your container, your goods, shot at the door as it loads. Sent the same day.
• Packing list with real weights. Net and gross weight per bundle and sheet counts per pallet — the same numbers declared to the shipping line.

Behind all three sits the material guarantee: the panel that arrives matches the approved spec sheet. Same thickness, same grade, same construction as confirmed on the proforma invoice.

Verifying us before you pay an advance

We ask for 50% with the order, or 100% on custom work. If you have not traded with us before that is a real risk to take, so here is what you can check independently, and what we will send before you commit.

The legal seller. Cochin Wood Industries Private Limited, incorporated 10 December 2021, at 15-236/B, Thoppilan Building, Vattakattupady, Rayamangalam, Perumbavoor, Ernakulam, Kerala 683542, India. Directors: Edwin David and Ambily Anu Isaac.

Registrations you can check yourself, without asking us. All of this, with the portal for each one, is also on a single page you can forward to your compliance team: cochinwood.in/company-verification.

• IEC AAJCC9689H — our Importer-Exporter Code, issued by the DGFT office at Kochi. Verify it at dgft.gov.in under Services, View Any IEC Details.
• RCMC/FIEO/10262/2024-2025 — Registration cum Membership Certificate from the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, for wood and articles, valid to 31 March 2029. It registers us as a merchant exporter, and that word is worth explaining before you meet it on the certificate: it is a registration category, not a statement about where the panels come from. The manufacturing company is a separate business inside the same group, so CWI exports goods another company in the group pressed. The producing unit is named on every quotation, and you are welcome to visit it or send your own inspector.
• LEI 98450010B744B73B1445 — our Legal Entity Identifier, searchable on the GLEIF database at gleif.org. Useful if your bank runs a counterparty check.
• CIN U20219KL2021PTC072862 on the MCA portal and GSTIN 32AAJCC9689H1Z5 on the GST portal.

Who makes the goods. CWI Pvt Ltd is the selling and exporting entity. The Cochin Wood group has worked timber at Perumbavoor since 1986. Depending on grade and volume your order is pressed at the group’s own unit at Perumbavoor, which makes the bulk of what we sell; some grades and overflow volume come from approved mills in the same cluster. The producing unit is named on the quotation, and where a BIS Standard Mark applies we give the licence number so you can check its status and scope in BIS Care yourself.

Payment. The bank beneficiary name always matches the legal seller named on the proforma invoice. If you are ever sent bank details in which it does not, or which arrive by a channel other than the signed proforma invoice, stop and call the number on this site before remitting anything.

Before the container sails. You, or any inspection agency you appoint, may inspect the goods before loading, at your cost, on three business days notice. We hold the goods for it. We also send loading photographs and video of your container at the door, and we keep counter-samples of the approved grade.

If it goes wrong. Clause 14 of our Terms sets out shortfall refunds, the latent-defect window, the ten-business-day remedy decision and the return of any advance not earned if force majeure cancels the order.

Ask the export desk for the company documents pack if your onboarding process needs it.

Documents we provide

The standard set, with every shipment:

Tell us your customs broker’s checklist when you confirm the order. Destination-specific documents are agreed before production ends, not after the container sails.

Compliance: ISPM-15 and emissions

Three points export buyers ask about, answered straight.

• ISPM-15 packing. All solid-wood packing — pallets, runners, bearers — is treated and stamped ISPM-15 compliant.
• Plywood itself is exempt. Plywood is processed wood under ISPM-15, so the panels need no treatment stamp. Only the solid-wood packing around them does, and ours carries it.
• E1 glue line. A low-emission E1 glue line is available on Okoume-faced panels for markets and end uses that require it.

Cores are rubberwood and eucalyptus; faces are Okoume or Gurjan. The species detail is on Woods We Use.

Container weights that clear the destination

Plywood weighs out before it cubes out. We load every container to the lower of the ship-line payload and the destination road limit, so your boxes are never stopped at a weighbridge after arrival.

Figures are approximate and confirmed per booking on the proforma invoice. Sheet counts per container follow from these caps — the arithmetic — payload caps, sheet weights and worked 40ft loadings — is on the container weight guide.

Start with the spec

We ship to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Sri Lanka and Israel. Country-specific terms are on the export pages, including UAE and Israel.

Send thickness, sheet size, grade and monthly quantity. A proforma invoice follows in writing — FOB Cochin, in USD.

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