Source: FIATA

The most digital FIATA HQ Meeting yet, and first hybrid member event at that, officially came to a close after a fully-packed three days of sessions. An exciting high-level maritime crisis panel session on Friday finished off the week with an exclusive gathering of representatives from the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission, European Commission, African Union Commission and Development Research Centre of the State Council, China. Stay tuned for the next communication covering this exciting high-level session!

With 32 hours of sessions and 32 guest speakers, and numerous opportunities for networking and catching-up, members were finally able to ‘Reconnect’ with their freight forwarding family, to learn and grow together, and take back focused knowledge from a series of sessions convening international organisations in the home city of non-governmental concerns. Let’s not forget the roughly 500 cups of coffee consumed to keep us going during the week! 

The day began with an early CAI session, featuring an interesting discussion on the changing customs laws, and the need to stay on top of them, the importance of digitalisation and keeping up with the process as freight forwarders, as well as eCommerce and trade facilitation. The following session was of the Advisory Body on International Affairs, addressing the implementation of Trade Facilitation Agreements. The FIATA Logistics Institute session convened after lunch and addressed the labour shortage issue in the freight forwarding industry. 

The day came to a close with the Young Logistics Professional (YLP) session, featuring four presentations of the Regional Young International Freight Forwarder of the Year Award winners: Vimbai Loreen Manyumbu, RAME winner, Anastasia Tulek, RAMs winner, Umair Sheikh, RAP winner, and Femke Fürst, REU winner.

President Ivan Petrov officially closed the HQ Meeting with a review of the Meeting, sharing some statistics of the week, the main lessons learned, the importance of this chance to meet again, and the most-used poll words from the interactive sessions involving participant polls (see below). In total, around 160 participants joined online or in-person, making for a productive and fruitful discussion in each session.