The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) has called for a major overhaul of regulations to ensure a fair international shipping market.
In a discussion paper published on its website earlier this month (July 2022), the organisation accused the world’s largest shipping lines of seeking ‘to cut or restrict freight forwarders from their services’.
According to FIATA, the organisations – which form part of the three global shipping alliances and dominate 80 per cent of the worldwide market and 95 per cent of East-West trade – ‘are now abusing their dominant position in the market, together with regulatory anti-trust exemptions which are out of step with the current economic context, in a manner that is distorting free market competition, with detrimental impacts on the end consumer’.
It called for a review of the rules governing shipping lines ‘to ensure that they are fit for purpose and do not hinder level fair market competition, as well as to ensure attention is not diverted away from the industry’s key priorities’.
The paper calls for five key actions:
1. To direct investment towards decarbonisation rather than vertical integration.
2. To support the shipping industry with measures that are fit for purpose in the new economic environment.
3. To incentivise carbon offsets.
4. To develop a data charter for the logistics and transport industry.
5. To establish a formalised and consistent platform for global collaboration between all supply chain actors.
You can read FIATA’s discussion document here: https://fiata.org/fileadmin/20220615_Maritime_discussion_paper_v2_AS_ATv3.pdf
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