CIFFA 2024 Fall Forwarder

28 THE FORWARDER | FALL 2024 As well, CIFFA wants to clarify and push back on requirements for CASS associates program and bonds required that cost the industry in insurance. The 2024 regional winners of the Young Logistics Professionals (YLP) Award 2024 presented before the Congress on September 25. The YLP winners competing were: • Region Africa and Middle East: Nompilo Zulu, SAAFF, South Africa • Region Americas: Rashaad Francisco D’Gama Rose, CIFFA, Canada • Region Asia-Pacific: Thach Thao Nguyen, VLA, Vietnam • Region Europe: Laura Cristin Egerer, DSLV, Germany The audience was able to vote for the Global winner of this year’s Young Logistics Professionals Award (YLP) at the 2024 FIATA World Congress, with the award presented at the September 26 FIATA gala dinner. Announced as the Global Winner was Laura Cristin Egerer, the Region Europe Winner nominated by Bundesverband Spedition und Logistik (DSLV), whose remarkable achievements have earned her the title of this year’s global winner. Her dissertation, Reliable Logistics Solutions in an Unreliable Environment, explored the export of an oversized combustion chamber and the import of a dangerous goods sea freight shipment, which she presented in her live session in Panama. FIATA Plenary Sessions: Emerging Trends and Forces Shaping Logistics A panel on the emerging trends and forces shaping logistics was held during the FIATA plenary sessions on September 25. The panel featured: Alberto Aleman Zubieta, Advisor to Panama Government, Turgut Erkeskin, President, FIATA, Philippe Isler, Director, Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation and Executive Committee Member, World Economic Forum, and Ian Saunders, Secretary General, World Customs Organization. The panel began with a discussion of globalization, which, commented Zubieta, is being attacked in many ways. “Many conflicts are affecting trade, for example El Niño and global warming. The pandemic modified the way we trade, such as where we produce goods, and the industry is looking for closer markets where goods are produced. There are also a lot of changes in the way we communicate, the way we are buying products (i.e. e-commerce), in a way that a few years ago was not even imaginable,” he said. “We are at the stage where, as a trading community, we are deep and in a pivotal moment the way trade is being organized. The trading system is probably morphing into something new. We have been tested over and over again in the past few years-I would break down the challenges into two categories-self inflicted issues and external forces that we have to consider,” said Isler. Some of the challenges of the trading system have been self- inflicted, he suggested. “The trading system was developed along the idea that where labour costs were lower, the promise was that this model of manufacturing there would create growth and act as a catalyst for the developing world. International trade is a catalyst for growth, essential for jobs, etc. for all,” he said. Supply Chains have been optimized towards one single thing: efficiency, which has proved to be insufficient. In this way, supply chain disregarded things like environment, forced labour etc. Now we are getting uncoordinated, and seeing unilateral knee jerk reactions from governments putting regulations into place. The result has been that international trade has pulled people out of poverty but also alienated others. Infrastructure failures, such as software failures, cyber attacks etc demonstrate we still have significant points of failure, Isler said. Turgut Erkeskin noted that with new regulations in place around the world, there has been a tendency to move into a normative world. “New rules, regs and restrictions-new certification processes, (is an) interruption of supply chains. Today you can hardly find any product manufactured in one location with the raw product from the same location. To produce a simple phone you have to have several cross border operations. Trade dynamics are changing, for example with near shoring. As supply chains are getting longer, companies are looking to source from nearer locations, or friend shoring- sourcing from friendly allies. So we need to be constantly bringing new alternatives, transport solutions to our clients,” he said. Today, globalization is still in place, but sourcing has been moving more into Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin American countries. Logistics providers are expected to deliver fast, cheap and sustainable solutions. Some new corridors are not good enough with regard to their infrastructure, so it is a challenge to operate fast, cheap and sustainable. “We moved goods through certain corridors during Covid and we managed to do it, when we needed to.” But being able to regulate the systems while the goods are moving through several border crossings, i.e. Russia to Europe, will continue to be an issue. “We have to bring some ease into crossing the borders. These are difficult scenarios but we have to be prepared so that when we have other conflicts we can deliver the solution,” Erkeskin said. On the topic of customs, the weight of decision making that rests on customs officials around the world is significant, said Ian Saunders. “Its about encouraging positive effects, discouraging negative ones. With the weight of that responsibility, it’s a challenging environment to work in. But we have high expectations for trade and fluidity,” he said. The WCO has been identifying ways to facilitate trade but also to make the distinction-what is legitimate trade and what is trying to misuse the system? The mission is around standards, guidelines, and a compendium of best practices. Based on this set of objectives we all share, what can we all do, what practices have worked? Every shipment that goes through that doesn’t create a danger for us is a customs success,” Saunders noted. The second part of WCO responsibility is implementation support. “The majority of my 186 members are in developing countries and may not have the resources to develop the level of support that we