TSA launches forum on key issues as demands for end to anti-trust immunity get louder
The Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (TSA) has responded to customer service criticism from shippers by establishing a shipper advisory board. The TSA, a research and discussion forum representing most major shipping lines operating in the transpacific trades, said the board would provide an “unprecedented” forum to “strengthen the overall shipper-carrier relationship and improve collaboration on key issues affecting their respective industries”.
Lines serving the US have been subject to heavy criticism this year over freight rate spikes, surcharges, equipment shortages, cancelled bookings and disruption to supply chains. The build-up of resentment helped prompt the introduction to the US House of Representatives of a new Bill which would eliminate anti-trust immunity for ocean carriers serving the US. Brian Conrad, TSA Executive Administrator, claimed the forum would help soothe the tensions between lines and their customers on the transpacific trade.
“Shippers and carriers have been through a difficult time and need to mend fences,” he said. “The recession revealed operational challenges in the trade that are unsustainable as supply chains
become increasingly sophisticated and complex, and that all parties need to work together to solve.” A number of top-level shippers and forwarders have already signed up to participate in the new board, which will be run under the auspices of the TSA.
Kenneth Sine, Director of Ocean Services at forwarder CH Robinson, welcomed the new forum, which he said would allow lines and their customers to discuss critical issues of mutual importance. “We believe it’s a unique opportunity to promote greater collaboration and seek sustainable solutions that are beneficial to all,” he added.
YM Kim, TSA Chairman and CEO of Hanjin Shipping, said the advisory board would formalize a process for shippers and carriers to engage directly on short-term issues of mutual concern, as well as broader, longer-term developments in the transpacific trades. “It facilitates mutual understanding and allows us to jointly pursue solutions and best practices in our contracting, operations and business processes, and in our communications on a day-to-day basis,” he added.
Source: Mike King, IFW News, 04 May 2010