American Association of Exporters and Importers joined with Asian and European shipper groups.
Is there a global voice for shippers?
The question may have gotten muddier on Wednesday as the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI) announced that it and the Asian Shippers’ Association (ASA) and the European Shippers’ Council (ESC) have formed a new group called the Global Shippers’ Alliance (GSA).
The new Global Shippers’ Alliance could be seen as a rival to the Global Shippers Forum, which was formed in 2006 and to which the National Industrial Transportation League, the largest shippers’ group in the U.S. belongs.
The Global Shippers’ Forum was created in 2006 as a successor to the informal Tripartite Shippers’ Group. Its website said it was created so that shippers could get “formal recognition, consultation status and accreditation with the major UN agencies such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).”
But the ESC did not join the GSF and the Asian Shippers’ Council (ASC) later left the group, after disagreement about representation and membership fees in the global group.
Other members of the GSF include the Freight Management Association of Canada, Freight Transport Association (FTA) in Europe, the Consejo de Cargadores (CAC & UIA), Argentina, the Union of African Shippers’ Councils, the South African Shippers’ Council, the Australian Peak Shippers’ Association and the New Zealand Shippers’ Council.
The European Shippers Council said the new “GSA intends to engage in constructive dialogue with national governments, supranational bodies, NGO’s, transport organizations and organizations of logistic service providers and strive for better cooperation so international trade can thrive, economies can grow and society can benefit. Subjects that are important to shippers are, amongst others, fair pricing of transport including surcharges in maritime and air transport, proper competition, security and customs regulations, standardization to facilitate data exchange, terminal handling charges and service levels in international transport.”
A major rift developed two years ago between the shipper groups over whether to support an IMO regulation to require verification of container weight. GSF supported the regulation, while the Asian and European groups opposed it.
AEEI President and CEO Marianne Rowden said of the new group, “We really did not design it to be a rival organization and the European Shippers Council has been a partner for a couple of years now. Typically we have had partnerships with national associations who concentrate their efforts on trade compliance, regulatory issues, trade legislation as well some shipping issues,” including many of the European national associations.
She said AAEI began working with the ESC “to present a united front to negotiators of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.” AAEI also has partnerships with Canadian and Mexican trade organizations.
Rowden said the new Global Shippers Alliance is supposed to be “an umbrella organization for all of us.”
“It will look at shipping issues particularly there are some lingering issues from the West Coast port labor negotiations. There are surcharge issues that we’re looking at. But another component of it which most shipper associations don’t do is we are looking at trade facilitation — the WTO trade facilitation agreement and its implementation, advanced data for cargo, it’s a real blend of both pure transportation, shipping issues as well as trade issues.”
She said her group has a “very good working relationship with the NIT League and we try not to overlap with what they do they are a pure shippers’ association in terms of representing those issues as a transportation issue. We’re going to look at the issues that impact global trade. What are both the commercial and regulatory impediments to global trade and that’s how we look at it.”
New Global Shippers Alliance formed
