Major freight firm talks due in Dar es Salaam

Business Digest

Monday, 01 July 2013 09:03 Kenan Kalagho, EAST AFRICAN BUSINESS WEEK, KAMPALA, UGANDA

The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) is the largest non-governmental organization in the world. Some 40,000 forwarding and logistics firms are members in 150 countries, employing 10 million people. This month, Tanzania is to host the FIATA Region Africa & Middle East (RAME) conference. Last week the Tanzania Freight Forwarders Association (TAFFA) President and RAME 2013 Organization Committee Chairman, Stephen Ngatunga briefed East African Business Week’s Kenan Kalagho about the event. Below are excerpts;
Question: Recently you announced that TAFFA will be hosting FIATA Regional Africa and RAME conference, how prepared are you for such an important conference of its kind in Tanzania?
All preparations for the conference are in their final stages. We have received a lot of cooperation from the Ministry of Transport and involved Tanzania Conference Services Limited to handle the logistics of the conference.

What would the conference centre on?
This conference will be centered on providing a platform for businesses from around the world to network amongst themselves.
It also serves as a great opportunity to market Tanzanian ports further as being ideal gateways  for trade and promote Tanzania as a unique tourism country.
Again we aim to bring regional players together in order to achieve both networking and be able to disseminate best practices that can deal with the issues and challenges prevailing in the respective countries and potential ways for their resolutions using the FIATA mechanism.

What expectations do you have from the partner states of East Africa with regards to this event?
We expect all the five East African countries to participate in huge numbers since all those countries have freight forwarding businesses.
But again, the  regional Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Associations, which is the apex body of freight forwarders associations in the East African Community, will make presentations on training and boosting professionalism in the region.
This will lead to better regional cooperation and later boost trade amongst partner states.

We know that freight forwarders cannot achieve their goals without good roads, how do poor regional transport connections affect your business?
Poor regional road connectivity or any other transport network, be it railways, airports in any economy, do undermine businesses.
We do however, as stakeholders continue to push the government to ensure roads, railways and other infrastructure in the country are improved.

How prepared are you during the conference to make sure that you sell East African Community (EAC) natural resources, like the accessibilities of ports and railways to the world?
We are involving all the ambassadors of the East African region, related freight forwarding organisations’ and authorities in the region to get a broader outlook on the industry regional wise.
There will also be presentations advocating for the formation of the regional accreditation board for freight forwarders in a bid to boost professionalism in East Africa.

How is this event expected to boost the economy of the East African region?
Businesses will increase as more favourable partnerships between different countries are likely to be created.
These partnerships are likely to grow the business in the region thus leading to a stronger regional economy.

How do you see the future of freight forwarders in the East African region and are the regional partner states expected to talk with one language of selling the EAC ?
The future looks bright, because bodies like Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Associations are very committed towards a more professional, trained freight forwarding industry in the region.
We want the region to be in the frontline of these new developments which are expected to boost trade within and outside the region.