Speaking at the Silver Jubilee celebration function of Nepal Freight Forwarders Association (NEFFA), held on July 29, 2019 in Kathmandu, Mr S. Ramakrishna, Chairman, Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India (FFFAI), urged for greater collaboration between FFFAI and NEFFA for mutual benefit and enhancement of bilateral trade. On this occasion, the FFFAI Chairman recommended the following points:
* FFFAI and NEFFA should work together in disseminating the best practices of each country.
* Both the associations should boldly speak about the difficulties that each border faces and how to mitigate the same, by representing jointly to each government for which FFFAI stands committed.
* On inland waterways, there should be a meeting participated by India, Nepal and Bangladesh, and freight forwarders, and a joint proposal should be given to all governments to extend the treaty, which already exists with Bangladesh, to Nepal too, especially for Jogighopa and Pandu Multimodal Logistics Parks being opened up in North-Eastern India.
* Both FFFAI and NEFFA should have mutual cooperation and trust to help each other in recovery / settlement of payment issues.
Currently, freight forwarders in Nepal are concerned over irrational charges levied by shipping lines operating container services on the India-Nepal route, including labour charges, additional surcharges and demurrage charges, resulting in increase in logistics cost. In addition, congestion at dry ports and exorbitant registration charges for use of government’s cargo tracking system remain other areas of concern, said a release.
Earlier, on July 28, Mr Ramakrishna attended the India-Nepal Logistics Summit where discussions were held on infrastructure developments, issues related to transit time between Nepal and Indian ports, warehousing facilities in Nepal, issues related to tariffs charged by logistics service providers, and requirement of automation of Customs and border clearance, the release added.
