Breaking with routine!
No annual Fiata World Congress is like any of its predecessors – and this year’s meeting is likely to be one of the most innovate of all. We talked to Fiata president Babar Badat about the changes in the organisation, including in the secretariat in Switzerland.
Asia has made quite a name for itself as the venue for the Fiata World Congress in recent years, with New Delhi and Kuala Lumpur both starring. Now it’s Africa’s turn. Cape Town, one of the ten hippest cities in the world, according to a list published in the New York Times, will welcome more than 1,000 Fiata delegates to Southern Africa for their annual exchange between 1 and 5 October this year. The event is being organised by the country’s national forwarders’ association Saaff, the South African Association of Freight Forwarders.
The association can draw on its experiences from the not-so-distant past – in 2004 the congress already met in South Africa. Not in Cape Town or Johannesburg, as might be expected, but rather in the Sun City luxury resort. That conference venue was in the north of the country, in its North West Province; this year it’s the south’s turn, with Western Cape Province doing the honours. The region plays an important role in South Africa’s transport and logistics scene.
Changes at the top and further down
The South African association is not the only optimistic player at the event. Fiata president Babar Badat also has some thoughts about the conference. In an interview with the ITJ he showed his mettle. “It’s high time to break with routine! We have to create the conditions now to lead Fiata into a progressive future.”
What’s it all about? Technology and people are the key issues. “We’re talking to our technology partners about digitalisation. One of the central instruments for Fiata is the FBL, amongst others,” Badat established. “This will enable Fiata’s national representatives to gain harmonisation and simultaneously promote trade. Of course it can also be source of income for our member associations.”
The objective of motivating more young logisticians to join the global body is equally important to Badat: “They are going to be an integral part of our associations.” The annual naming of the Young International Freight Forwarder of the Year (see pages 36 – 37) makes an important contribution to this. There is also a day dedicated to young professionals. Additionally, Fiata also has plans to upgrade its training structure.
The conditions for change are being created at Fiata’s headquarters in Switzerland too. A new director general has been appointed, emerging from an intense selection process with no less than 250 applicants. Fiata’s annual general meeting will finally put to a vote the move of the association’s global headquarter across Switzerland, from Zurich to Geneva. Badat thinks that “the congress in Cape Town is the culmination of a lot of work we’ve done over the last few years, and will represent a new start for us.” There’s a lot at stake.
Africa has recently set some signs that point towards improving world trade relations, which represent freight forwarders’ lifelines, after all. A free-trade agreement aimed at eliminating most customs duties and other trade barriers across the continent now has no less than 54 signatory states on board, following the accession of Benin and Nigeria.
Good prospects for Africa
Albert Muchanga, the African Union’s commissioner for trade and industry, said Benin plans to attend the AU’s summit in Niamey (Niger). Nigeria has announced its intention to ratify the agreement. Mahamadou Issoufou, the country’s president, pointed out that “Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and its most populous country. The free-trade area would simply not have been complete without Nigeria.”
The final details of the agreement are set to be hammered out at the summit. Important open issues include eliminating non-tariff barriers to trade, as well as regulations to manage trade liberalisation measures, rules of origin and the development of a digital payment system.
In other news, Angola, a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), is launching an ambitious programme to reform its overall national business and investment environment, in order to attract more foreign investors. The problems are clear. The system providing foreign direct investors with access to the country as well as to the means to establish businesses there is too complicated. Inhibitory company regulations, restrictive business practices as well as a lack of public coordination are hampering the country’s ability to fully benefit from its advantageous strategic geographical position, its abundant natural resources and to engineer preferential access to foreign markets. It sounds like the core portent of Africa’s problems – which could be improved with the help of Unctad.
