News
Japan International Freight Forwarders Association Inc. (JIFFA) on June 14 agreed on a business plan for fiscal 2019 (April 2019-March 2020) at its eights annual general assembly since becoming a general incorporated association. According to the business plan, it will strive educate and train human resources by giving courses for qualifying international multimodal transport specialists, intensive courses on international multimodal transport, workshops for newly hired and mid-career employees of member companies, foreign language classes and introductory courses on transport terms and conditions. It will also make efforts to popularize its JIFFA multimodal (MT) bill of lading (B/L) and other transport documents. It will organize logistics seminars and other events as well. An election was conducted during the meeting to appoint new executives to replace those having finished out their terms. Mr. Junichiro Watanabe, senior managing executive officer of Nissin Corporation, assumed the JIFFA chairmanship.
JIFFA welcomed one new member in fiscal 2018, said Mr. Watanabe, adding that in the current fiscal year, a total of three enterprises joined the association in April and May. As of June 1, the total number had reached 521: 497 regular members and 24 supporting members (14 companies and 10 organizations). The chairman also stated that “the shipper business developing globally,” as the greatest contributing factor behind the growth in membership. It was accomplished “thanks to cooperation from all member companies,” he stressed.
International multimodal shipments that JIFFA members handle are growing steadily, said Mr. Watanabe. In fiscal 2018, they exported and imported a record 125.94 million tons in total, up 8.8% year on year, with exports growing 10.1% and imports, 8.1%.
As for projects to advance in fiscal 2019, the new chairman indicated that JIFFA will endeavor to further raise quality, particularly in organizing education and training programs, conducting research on logistics affairs in other countries and regions, and popularizing the JIFFA MT B/L and other transport documents.
As a new policy education and training, Mr. Watanabe said that JIFFA will consider introducing an e-learning system to reduce burdens that employees of member companies in distant regions shoulder in attending JIFFA education programs and workshops.
