Corrigendum - Fiata calls for a turn of the tide on the seas
The FIATA HQ Meeting in Geneva, one of the annual gatherings of the global organisation’s 40,000 freight forwarders, is addressing one of the palpitant challenges, the vertical integration of the industry – by the carriers.
President Ivan Petrov spoke of the “drastic misuse of the dominant market position” by many shipping companies, building up end-to-end logistics chains and hampering competition. “It is not only Maersk and Hamburg Süd, there are many others,” underlined SVP Jens Roemer, head of FIATA’s Working Group Sea.
The effect is global since, according to UN figures, 1.5% of the current inflation stems from the high freight rates. At the same time, as James Hookham, Secretary General of the Global Shippers Forum, put it in the course of the session of FIATA’s Multimodal Transport Institute (MTI), shippers are also experiencing “a tremendous loss of service.”
Extreme rates and long transport periods are just the tip of the iceberg. FIATA closed ranks with organisations like UNCTAD, WTO, IRU, GSF, the European CLECAT and other players who have kept the topic on the table. Constant lobbying encouraged the first regulators to put the competitive conditions of the maritime market under closer scrutiny.
On Friday, 20 May, Rebecca F. Dye, a member of the US Federal Maritime Commission, will put forward her organisation’s review of high sea shipping to the participants of the FIATA HQ Meeting in Geneva. For FIATA, Roemer defined the goal: “What we need is a global solution to this question.” (cd)