FIATA welcomes new ABIT Chair and Vice-Chair, and two new Association members at annual GM

FIATA brings together members from around 70 countries for digital General Meeting 

Yesterday, FIATA gathered more than 100 online participants, not counting those behind screens with a numerous audience, at the annual FIATA General Meeting (GM), where reports from the Presidency on 2021 activities and financial matters were approved, including the adoption of the budget for 2023.

FIATA would like to congratulate the Freight Forwarding Association of Azerbaijan (FFAA), and the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, on becoming the newest Association members to join the Federation – bringing the total number of Association members to 109. These additions reinforce FIATA’s membership value even in these unprecedented times.

The GM also saw the appointment of Tej Contractor as Advisory Body for Information and Technology (ABIT) Chair, and Nil Tunasar as ABIT Deputy Chair. Both bring recognised expertise in the field of digitalisation and will further leverage the digitalisation of trade documents at FIATA. For more information on both excellent professionals, please look out for the recent press release about the event, upcoming on the FIATA website.

Two new software providers implementing the paperless FIATA Bill of Lading solution - Brazil first country to sign the new FIATA Documents licensing agreement 

FIATA is happy to share that the number of software providers implementing the paperless FIATA Bill of Lading is rapidly increasing. Since the launch of the solution, two new software providers (Riege Software and Xinerji Software) have already joined the seven initials vendors:
(AKANEA, Cargowise, CargoX, edoxOnline (Global Share), InfoSysTech-IST, Nabu and Usyncro).

The paperless FIATA Bill of Lading solution is available as open source for all software providers, so if your current software/TMS provider is not part of this list yet, we kindly invite you to contact them or put them in contact with FIATA digital teams ([email protected]) to encourage them to implement the solution.
If you have created your in-house system, the solution can also be implemented directly on your system.

We are also happy to share that ACTC is the first FIATA Association to have signed the new FIATA Documents licensing agreement, including the paperless FBL.

Please contact [email protected] if you are interested to start issuing paperless FIATA BLs or have any questions. Find out more about the paperless FIATA Bill of Lading on our website: https://fiata.org/paperless-fbl.html

Do not miss out on the biggest opportunity of the year to reunite with the freight forwarding community!

FIATA members, non-members and friends are invited and reminded to register for the 2022 FIATA World Congress!
The FIATA World Congress will take place from Wednesday 14 September to Friday 16 September, with FIATA Body meetings, for members only, from Monday 12 September to Tuesday 13 September. Members can also take a look at the preliminary programme to get a feel for what is to come.

FIATA invites its members to review travel arrangements now, such as visa requests or K-ETA requirements, to ensure a smooth arrival in South Korea. Please check out entry requirements on the official Congress website.

WCO Private Sector Consultative Group meets in Brussels

On 20-21 June 2022, the World Customs Organization (WCO) Private Sector Consultative Group (PSCG), of which FIATA is a member, held its live meeting at the WCO headquarters in Brussels. After over two years of virtual meetings since the onset of the pandemic, it was an excellent opportunity to exchange in-person with fellow PSCG members on key customs issues.
 
Among others, the PSCG discussed business continuity planning and lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the need for customs to maintain and build upon facilitation measures implemented during that time. FIATA highlighted freight forwarder experiences and noted that business continuity planning had been flagged as a valuable future workstream during the FIATA HQ Meeting in May. The group considered the development of best practices whilst leveraging the provisions of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and WCO customs frameworks, with further work to take place on this in the coming months.
 
Digitalisation and the WCO Data Strategy were also discussed as being critical to facilitating trade, optimising processes, and contributing greener customs. Transitioning customs culture from being a "document managing organisation" to a "data managed organisation" was considered as a crucial factor. FIATA underlined the important role of the WCO and the private sector to advocate for decentralisation, interoperability, and a level-playing field in the data transition. 

PSCG meetings were held in conjunction with the WCO Policy Commission meetings, providing the opportunity for the PSCG to share its perspectives on the way forward for customs from the private sector experience and build constructive dialogue in a dedicated meeting on 23 June. FIATA welcomes the valuable efforts of the WCO to integrate industry voices in their policymaking. FIATA remains committed to providing its support and input to the WCO and the PSCG, in the interests of facilitating international trade flows.

New WTO Trade Connectivity Heatmap set to help locate bilateral trade between economies

On 23 June, the World Trade Organisation launched the Trade Connectivity Heatmap, 'a new visualisation tool designed to give a broad overview of the trade relationships between different economies across different product categories, with the possibility of honing in on data for bilateral product-by-product relationships.'

The tool can be accessed here, and will help freight forwarders and the logistics sector at large to visualise:

1. Imports originating from the selected economy, as a share of other economies' total imports in the chosen product category.
2. Exports destined for the selected economy, as a share of other economies' total exports in the chosen product category.
3. The selected economy's imports originating from other economies, as a share of the selected economy's imports in the chosen product category.
4. The selected economy's exports destined for other economies, as a share of the selected economy's exports in the chosen product category.

For more information on the new initiative, read more here.

AGENDA

Upcoming events:

• 6 July ¦ CLECAT ICS 2 Workshop
• 12 - 16 September ¦ FIATA World Congress