Tag Archives: FFFAI

The upcoming FWC-2018 is set to showcase as an important platform for the fast-changing landscape of the freight forwarding, transport and logistics industry, feels AV Vijaykumar, Chairman, FFFAI. He said, “The dynamics of international freight forwarding, transport and logistics industry is rapidly changing. Conventional methods are replaced by process-driven procedures and system enabled practices. Adopting and being adept with this paradigm shift is a challenge for the industry. FFFAI is focusing on the members to be conversant with both domestic and global changes and challenges.” An event of this magnitude needs complete cooperation and coordination from a wide spectrum of stakeholders, including the government and the ministries.

The Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India (FFFAI) highly commends the Government of India for its firmness to implement the GST. It has positively impacted the manufacturing, ex-im trade and logistics industry. However, there are some areas of concern that require to be addressed. “After completion of one year of GST we can say that it has matured to a great extent in terms of filing of returns. However, for the services sector, export services have not been defined adequately. Issues pertaining to taxes on goods are more or less resolved and are being settled in the regular GST Council meetings. Our sincere request to the Council is to redefine the export services so that there is no scope of ambiguity and hassles to service providers,” says S Ramakrishna, Vice Chairman, FFFAI. He also maintains that the concept of GSTR-I, 2 and 3 should have been continued so that auto reconciliation through the system could have happened. Ramakrishna pushes for doing away with human intervention, which is, in fact, the intention and vision of the present government at the Centre. It is also pertinent to mention that the technology support from GSTN, which is the backbone to successfully implement and carry out the tax revolution in India, has to be well-structured and streamlined. “As the Finance Secretary of India, Hasmukh Adhia assured in his very recent statement, we are looking forward to the next GST Council meeting for some pragmatic decision on services sector, GSTN and other issues,” Ramakrishna concludes.

While enumerating the necessity of skill required in the field of logistics, Shankar Shinde, Vice Chairman, FFFAI, opined at the 23rd convention of the Federation of Freight Forwarders Association in India (FFFAI): “We always try to convert challenges into opportunities. One of the most important challenge is skill. We are trying to focus onto skill development through this convention. Hence, we are looking for training and adapting international practices for better upliftment.  Our idea is to make logistics as a choice of first profession. For the next generation, the decision to become a logistician should not come by default, but, by choice.”

The FFFAI convention held in Kochi, saw eminent industry persons come and deliberate on crucial elements of the logistics sector. Highlighting the same, Samir J Shah, Chairman, FFFAI, said, “We are working on three important issues. One of the most important issues we are targeting is skill; we understand with technology, domain knowledge of the broker is going to become important. Secondly, our focus is on gender equalisation and thirdly, we are creating a platform where FFFAI member can adopt the changes that are coming in the future. The Indian custom broker is capable of doing everything. Hence, any importer or exporter does not need to go to anybody else; the entire supply chain will be looked after by them.”