Reporter Xu Hua

Recent news has it that two regional alliances—Asian Shippers Alliance and Global Shippers Alliance were established. Tracing the source,we find that in Asia such association to represent the interests of the regional shippers has already existed,the Asian Shippers Council. In the global sphere, there is already the GSF (Global Shippers Forum). ASA and ASC, GSA and GSF, they are like Gemini. What is the relationship between them?

Cai Jiaxiang, the vice Chairman of ASC and the vice President of China Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Enterprise Association says that for a long time, the regional shippers’ organization in the world has been in a constant process of separation and merge, there is not a uniform and stable platform. The bottom of the truth is disunity.

The establishment of the ASC is a milestone in shipper cooperation in Asia, it is also a platform for shippers in Asia to better exchange views and to voice their opinions to the international organizations. The mission is to safeguard the common interests of Asian shippers, have talks with liners and route organizations, voice opinions of the shippers to the government departments and international organizations, maintain maritime security, so to realize smooth development for international trade and logistics.

However, after more than a year of suspension of ASC work, the president of the Indonesian Shippers Association notified by email on January 12, 2015 to hold the first ASA meeting in Surabaya, Indonesia, announcing the establishment of Asian shippers association ASA. So far, few national or regional shipper associations have responded, and its members only include Indonesia,Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macao and Bangladesh.

Compared with this unreasonableness of ASA, the establishment of ESC has its reasons. In spite of the fact that GSA has just established, the outsiders consider it the GSF’s competitor.

GSF was originally established on the basis of the “three big global shippers organizations (TSG)”. Cai Jiaxiang said that at present, GSF actually only has Britain freight association FTA, U.S NITL and Canada CITA as its members. It could be a good thing for ESC to re-establish GSA, which could represent the common interests of the global shippers.

Despite the constant separation and merge of global shippers alliances, their existence provide more guarantee for shippers and owners’ rights. Of which, the repeal of the antitrust immunity of the liner union, P3 veto, resistance to collect fees in disorder, and objection to container weighing convention which is in the process are especially considered as important outcomes.