THE French government plans to raise EUR1.24 billion (US$1.68 billion) in taxes from truckers once a green tax on heavy trucks is levied to discourage road haulage from mid-2013, reports London's International Freighting Weekly.

    France's public agency for the funding of transport infrastructure, L'Agence de Financement des Infrastructures de Transport de France (AFITF), estimates that the green tax levied on trucks will average EUR0.12 per kilometre.

    Italy's Autostrade per l'Italia has led the consortium that won the French contract to collect the tax through a satellite-based toll system. State-owned Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Fran?is (SNCF), the country's biggest road and rail freight carrier, is a minority partner in the consortium.

    It will affect around 600,000 French trucks and 200,000 foreign-registered vehicles, plying over 12,000 kilometres of French highways - aiming to encourage shippers to use modes of transport other than road.

    The scheme will require vehicles to bear track and trace badges. The big French trucking association, la Federation Nationale des Transporteurs Routiers (FNTR) has opposed the tax since it was first mooted, estimating that it will add five to 10 per cent to trucking firms' operating costs.

    "While the legislation accompanying this tax makes provision for hauliers to pass on the cost to shippers and, ultimately, consumers, applying it is likely to be a complex and time-consuming exercise - in short, an additional administrative cost," an FBTR spokesman told IFW. crack

(source:http://www.shippingonline.cn/news/newsList.asp?classname=News)