Results of event, 2007 — International Freight Forwarder’s Day 2011

More than 100 representatives of freight forwarding community from 15 world states (i.e. Austria, Azerbaidzhan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Switzerland and Estonia) participated in the “International Freight Forwarders Day 2007”.

The following delegates took part in International Forum: Mr. Vyacheslav Shuvalov, General Manager, International MultiModal Association (IMMTA); Mr. Marcus Schoeni, Manager, Vocational Training for Freight Forwarders Committee, International Federation of Freight Forwarding Associations (FIATA); Mr. Marco Sorgetti, General manager, European Association for forwarding, transport, logistics and customs services (CLECAT); Mr. Kalman Somodi, Executive Secretary, Organization for Railways Cooperation (OSJD); Mrs. Zubayda Aspaeva, OSJD Commission Chairman; Mr. Robert Wagener, TRACECA project Manager; Heiner Rogge, German Association of freight forwarding and logistic companies (“DSLV”); Mr. Yuriy Sitkov, Director, Association of Russian Freight Forwarders; Mr. Sergey Taran, Chairman, Association of Freight Forwarders of Moldova; Mr. Victor Kushnirchuk, Director, Transcontainer; Mr. Vityanis Alishkauskas, Coordinator on technical assistance for customs services of Ukraine and Moldova; Mr. Georgiy legenkiy, Director, Department of Development and coordination of transport systems for Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine; Mr. Illiya Levitskiy, Regional Councilor of Director General, State Customs Service of Ukraine; Mr. Aleksandr Fedorov, Deputy Head, State Customs Service of Ukraine; Mr. Valeriy Lugovets, Head of the Department, State Customs Service of Ukraine; Mrs. Victoria Mulyavka, Head of Department for Development of Foreign Trade Service Market, Foreign Trade Department of Ministry of Economy of Ukraine; Mr. Boris Mikheev, President of association of freight forwarding organizations of Ukraine “Ukrvneshtrans”; Mr. Evgeniy Novikov, Director General, “Ukrvneshtrans”; Mr. Oleg Platonov, President, “PLASKE” JSC; Mr. Ivan Liptuga, Director General, “PLASKE” JSC, etc.

In the framework of “International Freight Forwarders Day 2007” the participants discussed several important issues: the latest news about international transport associations activities; the development of competitiveness in the freight market; the development of traffic containerization in Europe-Asia-Europe direction; tariff policy and cargo flows marketing; future development of intermodal transport; international vocational training for freight forwarders according to FIATA program and TRACECA project; distance learning, electronic transport document usage; unification of transport document as customs declaration; the development of partnership between government administrations, freight forwarding companies and national forwarding associations.

“International Freight Forwarders Day 2007” was held in the year of the 15th anniversary of Association of freight forwarding organizations “Ukrvneshtrans”. During this period of time under the auspices of “Ukrvneshtrans” several important legal documents entered into effect: the Law of Ukraine “On foreign economic activity” (1991), Regulation of KMU “On freight forwarding service within foreign economic and transit cargo” (1993), Code of trade maritime traffic of Ukraine (1995), the Law of Ukraine “On cargo transit” (1999), the Law of Ukraine “On transport” (2000), the Law of Ukraine “On freight forwarding activity of international freight forwarders” (2004), etc. “Adoption of the above mentioned laws provided favorable conditions for export-import and transit cargo traffic” – Mr. Boris Mikheev, the president of Association, reported.

The International Freight Forwarder’s Day” is the traditional meeting of the representatives of transport and freight forwarding industry and State Authorities. The main objective of the International Freight Forwarder’s Day is the increase of professional level of the industry experts and the development of supporting area of transport and freight forwarding services in Eastern Europe. During 5 years of its existence “The International Freight Forwarder’s Day” played the important role in the development of transport communications in Ukraine? And the integration into the international system of transport corridors.

Mr. Boris Mikheev said: “During the last freight forwarding year Association defended the interests and rights of its members by means of bilateral cooperation with “Ukrzaliznitsya”, State Customs Service and European Transport Operators Union. The Association plans to extend the partnership between governmental bodies of Ukraine, international representatives of freight forwarding and logistic sector, associations of CIS states and west European colleagues as part of the intergovernmental commission TRACECA project “Vocational training for freight forwarders”.”

According to Mr. Mikheev, the main activity lines are: representation and defense of rights and interests of the members, participation as advisers and experts in meetings and sessions of Ukrainian government and international organizations; adaptation of international and inner standards for freight forwarding activity; establishment of business connections with freight forwarding companies; development of proposals on customs procedures facilitation; development of methodical recommendations for FIATA documents usage; introduction of norms of behavior in the transport market according to transparent rules.

Partnership and cooperation development of “Ukrvneshtrans” is focused on assistance to multimodal transport, as well as expedited, safe and reliable traffic via TRACECA corridor aimed at the improvement of access to international markets and competitiveness rise. During the visits to European organizations in March this year, “Ukrvneshtrans” participated in vocational training in Germany and the Netherlands and held negotiations on the further cooperation with one of TRACECA project executor, Dr. Norbert Wagener.

Mr. Mikheev’s report was topped up by Mr. Oleg Platonov, the First Chairman Deputy of Council of State Customs Service of Ukraine. He dwelt upon the main targets of international forwarders’ forum. They include the creation of single transport documents for economic operators, which is able to facilitate customs procedures for transit cargo as well as during export or import. “Our final goal is the creation of such situation, when economic operator would be able to create the document in his office, send it to customs without wasting time”, stressed Mr. Platonov. Such a transparent model will provide the real service not excluding the appropriate control.

Mr. Marco Sorgetti (Director General, CLECAT) introduced the research on rail market conditions in EU. He said that “EU business needs logistics providers that are able to compete in global economy.” EU logistic sector is increasing annually by 5% and that proves its leadership in the world but despite the sustainability European Union is considering the issue of competitiveness preservation. “First of all, it is necessary for successful competition in the global economy,” Mr. Sorgetti mentioned. He also stressed that logistics is a business and this business is to be “commercially viable”. That means that logistics providers should meet the clients’ demands. “Logistics is not only transport: it is the package of services that gives the opportunity to arrange freight traffic”, Mr. Sorgetti highlighted.

Heine Rogge (Director General, DSLV, Germany) focused on competitiveness of EU rail operators and German ones in particular. Meetings, experience sharing is the most valuable issue that contributes to business development. It is not a secret that national forwarders work in more difficult economic circumstances than in European states. But, nevertheless, competence of Ukrainian specialists is quite high and national companies can compete in the world market and defend their interests against the expansion of foreign establishments.

Mr. Kalman Somodi (Secretary, OSJD) informed the delegates about Euroasian rail traffic development. According to Mr. Somodi, Euroasian rail traffic is one of the main line of activity in OSJD. As it was mentioned, OSJD participation in Euro-Asian rail transport development includes the range of issues connected with improvement of international rail and intermodal transport within “Europe-Asia”, formation of transport policy and strategy in international rail legislation. Among other issues there are: work on international rail tariffs for passenger and freight traffics, cooperation within operational, technical, financial and ecological fields of rail transport between international rail organizations. According to Mr. Somodi, “technical rules of OSJD act as international standards that provide technical compatibility”.

According to Mr. Mikhail Prokofiev (Secretary, TRACECA projects in CIS states), in the context of intermodal transport development, “universal forwarders”, which arrange “door-todoor” delivery, play the leading role.

Mr. Prokofiev devoted his presentation to the future of forwarder as “freight integrator”. Such a profession must be developed within a “single, transparent scheme, which is easy to enforce”, clearly defining, in particular, where responsibility lies all along the logistics chain and laying down the corresponding transport documents. “Freight integrators” need to be able to combine the specific strengths of each mode at European and world level to offer their clients and, consequently, society at large the best service in terms of efficiency, price and environmental impact in the broadest sense (economic, ecological, energy, etc.).

Mr. Ivan Liptuga (Director General, “PLASKE” JSC; Chairman Deputy, FIATA Advisory Body Vocational Training (ABVT) reported on vocational training for freight forwarders. ABVT FIATA was founded in 1996 as a platform for freight forwarder’s professional education on the base of national associations programs. Its main goal is the promotion of vocational training standards in the field of freight forwarding and the development of learning programs at international level. ABVT Institution developed and adopted FIATA Minimum Standards to defend national programs. The defense is carried out twice a year during FIATA events. The national associations that successfully defended their programs obtain the right to provide vocational training with FIATA diploma awarding, which is acknowledged by professionals all over the world. The ABVT nearest plans is adoption of FIATA Minimum Standards according to the training program for experienced freight forwarders and for FIATA trainers. The development of vocational training programs on freight forwarding is the priority in FIATA activity as that vocational training and development of the staff in the transport field has long become the important issue of successful activity of freight forwarding companies - the architects of transport industry.

Mr. Vityanis Alishauskas, the coordinator on technical support of Ukraine and Moldova, dwelt upon the strategy of European Union and particularly on creation dynamic and competitive conditions for EU economy, based on knowledge. He paid special attention to the overcoming of bureaucracy within global goods turnover.

Mr. Alexandr Fyodorov, the Deputy Chief of Ukrainian Customs Service informed the delegates about international program of container control, which started in July 2003. This program is oriented on supporting the safety of container traffic. Also in the framework of the program there is the possibility of training the representatives of all supervising organizations, state offices that are immediately involved into international freight traffic.

During the «International Freight Forwarders Day 2006», within the framework of the conference “The position of transport corridors in the process of integration of Ukraine in EU and WTO” for the first time in the history of Ukraine the memorandum was signed between State Customs Service of Ukraine and Association of freight forwarding organizations “Ukrzovnishtrans”. That memorandum assigned the cooperation between Ukrainian Customs and freight forwarders in simplifying and facilitating of customs procedures and its efficient implementation. As it was stressed in the report of Mr. Valeriy Lugovets, the Chief of the Department of Cargo Traffic Control of National Customs Service, the agreement was signed and acts within the framework of safety and simplifying of world trade standards of WTO.

The results of common activity showed the necessity to continue the cooperation between these two organizations.

During the «International Freight Forwarders Day 2007» it was agreed about further cooperation and development of a new text of agreement with regards to informational exchange of electronic clearance, prevention of corruption and illegal traffic; also the agreement was reached within the framework of control over compliance with WCO international standards, which was adopted and signed on July 25, 2007.

Mrs. Victoria Mulyavka, the Chief of the Department for Development of Foreign Trade Services Market, Department of Foreign Economic Policy, the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, informed the participants that on May 30, 2007 the Program on Implementation of electronic documents turnover with digital signature had been launched.

Mr. Georgiy Legenkiy, the Director of the Department for Development and Coordination of Transport and Connections Systems, the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine, noted the importance of the issues discussed at the conference regarding vocational training of freight forwarders and also reported about priority directions of the policy of Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine in arrangement of appliance of transit potential according to the transport facilities of Ukraine.

The questions regarding the service quality in freight forwarding activity and appliance of shipping documents were discussed by participants of the forum and the representatives of national freight forwarding associations of Bulgaria, Germany, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.

After the discussion «UKRVNESHTRANS» association (Ukraine) and the Association of Russian Freight Forwarders (Russia) signed the Cooperation Agreement on implementation of standard service quality in freight forwarding activity, on vocational training for freight forwarders, appliance of FIATA documents, etc. «International Freight Forwarders Day 2007» was finished with press conference for mass media.

Many participants visited Odessa for the first time. That is why they were delighted to use the possibility given by the Organizers to get acquainted with historical monuments and feel the air of the multinational city founded by enterprising immigrants from Europe and the Russian Empire.

After it the participants took part in bowling competition in informal atmosphere in the entertaining club “Ё”. The hot battle on the playing alleys joined the participants, exalted and relaxed them. Here all were the winners. As it is known, he who not wins but who takes part is the winner!

The evening finished with FIATA diplomas awarding for passing “Ukrvneshtrans” courses on freight forwarding. The diplomas were awarded by Mr. Marcus Shoeni (FIATA ABVT) and Mr. Ivan Liptuga (Deputy Chairman, ABVT, Director General, “PLASKE” JSC) in friendly and relaxing environment of “Ё” club.

“International Freight Forwarders Day 2007” has finished.

Its distinctive feature is the importance and urgency of the issues discussed.

The participation of various international associations’ representatives, governmental bodies and international freight forwarding organizations’ representatives shows the importance of this event for national forwarding community and the necessity for further cooperation between Ukrainian authorities and business representatives.