Maritime crisis strategy well underway

The maritime crisis set as a top priority 

At its fourth meeting in 2022, the FIATA Presidency decided to make the maritime crisis a top priority for FIATA. It validated a 3-pillar strategic approach to support its members by consolidating evidence-based data and provide them tools and resources to engage with their national authorities and raise awareness of the economic impact of the crisis. With this decision, FIATA will allocate special resources to the FIATA Headquarters to support its member's actions on this topic.

In order to lead FIATA's work on this crucial issue for the future of the freight forwarding community, a Global Maritime Taskforce will meet every two months to discuss the latest developments and support the work of the FIATA Headquarters. The second meeting will take place this week and will allow the further development of FIATA's roadmap for dealing with the crisis. 

To share information, facts and figures on the maritime situation in your region, please contact FIATA on maritime@fiata.org.

The IATA-FIATA Consultative Council (IFCC) comes to an end

The 83rd session of the IATA-FIATA Consultative Council (IFCC) began on Tuesday and ran through until yesterday afternoon, bringing together freight forwarders and airlines in this important forum to discuss matters impacting the cargo agency relationship. 

FIATA brought in three agenda items for the interest of its members, and commented on many resolutions for adaptation/improvement in order to foster dialogue and operational efficiency. The key results of the meeting will be reported in the next weeks and serve as a basis for the Cargo Agency Conference in Geneva on 23-24 March.

If you have any questions please send them to legal@fiata.org.

FIATA Review April *SPECIAL* Teaser

FIATA members can look forward to the upcoming April Edition of the FIATA Review. In this edition, there will be a Special on the maritime crisis, with the views of practitioners, institutionals and an exclusive contribution of the WTO Director General. Other topics include the return to FIATA's major face-to-face events after the pandemic, including the FIATA Headquarters Meeting in May in Geneva and the FIATA World Congress 2022 in September in Korea. Readers will also not want to miss the latest news from FIATA's association members around the world. 
In the meantime, you can read the latest edition published in December 2021 of the FIATA Review here.

Competition regulators join forces to investigate cartel conduct in global supply chains

This week it emerged that 'unscrupulous businesses were using COVID-19 as an opportunity for cartel conduct' according to New Zealand's Commerce Commission Chair, Anna Rawlings. Non-essential collusion between competitors was amongst other issues mentioned by Rawlings, and will be investigated by the group of competition regulators in a joint effort to tackle anti-competitive behaviour. FIATA welcomes this. Past investigations by regulators in the US, EU and China were not successful in bringing evidence.

The collaboration includes the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Canadian Competition Bureau, New Zealand's Commerce Commission, the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority and the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division, the latter of which was unsuccessful in bringing evidence of the activity in a two-year investigation closed in February 2019. 

The European Commission has been prompted by European forwarders to investigate some of the recent practices of shipping lines, which they believe are anti-competitive and an abuse of their dominant position.

For more comments and information, see the full news article.

Signs of improvement for the container supply chain crisis?

The current problem affecting sea ports at this time can be broken into three aspects, namely the onward intermodal connections, the terminal itself and the shipping considerations. These key issues will affect the resolution of the supply chain crisis, and until resolved, The Loadstar opinion piece does not believe pressure will be relieved on the container ship market.

Estimates made by MSI for containerised trade growth in 2021 were at 6%, above fleet growth of 4.5%. James Frew of The Loadstar points out that 'a 1.5% point differential between supply and demand is scarcely enough to justify charter rates for an elderly panamax vessel hitting six figures.' Instead, he suggests that 'port congestion, container shortages and wider supply chain disruption have driven supply/demand imbalances'.

Read the full article here.

FIATA New Communications Officer

FIATA is delighted to welcome Amanda Stock, who joined FIATA this month to support the FIATA Head Office team in Geneva as Communications Officer. Her role will be to work on the general communication of hot topics for our members as well as the general public, including the current maritime crisis. She will also be in charge of coordinating FIATA's presence on social networks and managing the relations to media.

Should you need to contact her for communications related matters, you can do so at communications@fiata.org.