News
Japan International Freight Forwarders Association Inc. (JIFFA) convened its sixth annual general assembly on June 8, at which it agreed on a business plan that it will advance in fiscal 2017 (April 2017-March 2018). In accordance with the business plan, which is made up of 18 important projects, JIFFA will, for example, deliver a course for qualifying international multimodal transport specialists and an intensive course for lecturing international multimodal cargo transport, give workshops for young and mid-career workers as well as language courses, promote its transport documents, consider holding logistics seminars, complying with a revised Commercial Code and a sixth Nippon Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System (NACCS) and participate in intergovernmental workshops.
JIFFA Chairman Yutaka Ito held a press conference after the general assembly. “As we had gained understanding and won cooperation on out activities, the number of member companies increased to 482 in June,” he said. “Including supporting members, the total number of member companies and organization reached 504, helping us clear our target of 500.” “We would like to continue to raise the number through activities that we conduct to meet demand from forwarders,” he stressed.
Chairman Ito pointed out briskness in the movement of non-vessel-operating common carrier (NVOCC) cargo. “The total volume of [international multimodal] cargo that JIFFA members handled in 2016 increased 5.8% [year on year] to 112.17 million tons,” he said. “[Cargo movement was] weak in the first half, but [came back] in the second half thanks to improvements in the economies of advanced countries, in particular, a recovery in the Asian economy and growth in the European economy that took place in the autumn.”
“We intend to carry out a variety of projects, having reviewed our activities again,” he said. “We would like to enhance our business support for local and other members, and upgrade our global network.”
