FIATA stands for International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations and takes its name from the French acronym of Fédération Internationale des Associations de Transitaires et Assimilés. This organization is the biggest non-governmental transportation company in the world and was first founded in 1926 in Vienna. Right now, its main headquarters are in Geneva.
What is FIATA, and how many members does it have?
The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) has 108 member associations and over 5800 individual members representing over 40 thousand shipping and logistics companies from all over the world.
FIATA’s primary administrative authority is the General Assembly, whose task is to adopt resolutions designating the organization’s work and to monitor its progress.
FIATA has Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.
Mission
FIATA has five main objectives:
- Unifying the transportation sector worldwide.
- Representing, promoting, and protecting the sector’s business through work as advisors or experts during international transport companies’ gatherings.
- Familiarizing trade and industrial companies with forwarders’ services (spreading information, distributing publications).
- Unifying and improving the quality of forwarders’ services (developing and popularizing uniform shipping documents and standard trade conditions).
- Assisting in training forwarders, dealing with difficulties with liability insurances, and e-commerce tools (electronic data interchange, barcodes).
FIATA’s work supports the entire industry by representing its members and promoting various trade solutions. Documents developed by the organization are a valuable source of information about international policies and laws which regulate the shipping and logistics industries. The group also deals with preparing evaluations for international organizations.
An equally important element of FIATA’s mission is cooperation with international transport, freight, and world trade companies. Among those groups are the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Air Transport Association, the International Union of Railways, the International Road Transport Union, the World Customs Organization, and the World Trade Organization.
FIATA transport documents
- FFI (FIATA Forwarding Instructions)
- FCR (FIATA Forwarder’s Certificate of Receipt)
- FCT (FIATA Forwarder’s Certificate of Transport)
- FWR (FIATA Warehouse Receipt)
- SDT (FIATA Shipper’s Certification for the Dangerous Goods)
- SIC (FIATA Shippers Intermodal Weight Certification)
- FWB (Non-Negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Waybill)
- FBL (Negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Bill of Lading)
Forwarders using these documents increase the certainty of gaining profit and the safety of the shipped products. Such results are possible thanks to FIATA overseeing their proper use, both directly and through the given country’s members.