Association of Hungarian Forwarders
The Association of Hungarian Forwarders (AHF) (Magyar Szállítmányozók Szövetsége (MSZSZ) is an organisation that represents the interests of members of the forwarding industry in Hungary, including companies dealing with freight forwarding, logistics, and customs activities.
The Association represents the professional interests of companies registered in Hungary, articulating the consensus of freight forwarders on the issues of operating conditions and directions of development in both forwarding and transportation.
Since the opinions expressed represent various interests, internal and external resolution of these viewpoints is part of our daily agenda. Activities also include the submission of recommendations to Governmental bodies and customs administrations.
The AHF is responsible for approval of the Hungarian General Forwarding Conditions, a document, whose importance extends beyond the scope of the organization itself.
The Assiciation operates several working groups, which apply the members' experience and group wisdom to the treatment of various professional issues in forwarding and logistics.
The AHF maintains continuous contact with the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, KTI Hungarian Institute for Transport Sciences and Logistics, as well as with other Hungarian forwarding, logistics and transportation associations and organizations.
The Association of Hungarian Forwarders, as a Hungarian national federation, is a member of FIATA (Fédération Internationale des Associations de Transitaires et Assimilés - International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations), the world association of freight forwarders, and a member of CLECAT (Comité de Liaison Européen des Commissionaires et Auxiliaires de Transport du Marché Commun - European Liaison Committee of Common Market Forwarders).
This home page seeks to serve the interests of the Association of Hungarian Forwarders by providing you with both a detailed description of and source of information on the organisation, its objectives, and its members. Thank you for your interest, and we hope you will find the information presented here useful.
FIATA
The History of FIATA
FIATA, in French `Fédération Internationale des Associations de Transitaires et Assimilés', in English `International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations', is the largest non-governmental organisation in the field of transportation at present. Its influence is worldwide.
FIATA was founded in Vienna (Austria) on May 31, 1926 by 16 national/regional organisations (among others by The National Associaton of Hungarian Freightforwarders). The aim was to amalgamate freight forwarders organisations in different countries around the world to safeguard and promote common professional and economic interests, especially vis-á-vis national and international organisations, institutions, governments and carriers. In addition the FIATA founders wanted to improve the standards in the industry. The first FIATA president was Paul Lehmann, Nordisk Speditőr-Forbund, Copenhagen (Denmark).
During the Second World War FIATA suspended its work. Its active again from 1947 and since then has developed dynamically in line with world trade. In 1965 it opened its secretariat to co-oridinate its wide-range activities and to develop the co-operation with national associations. In 1997 it has started a regional secretariat in Bombay to increase the activity in the asian region. Today FIATA represents an industry covering approximately 40,000 forwarding firms employing around 8-10 million people in 150 countries.
FIATA services meeting members' needs
FIATA unites the freight forwarding industry worldwide. Its representatives and the secretariat represent, promote and protect the interests of the industry by participating as advisors or experts in meetings of international bodies dealing with transportation. FIATA familiarises trade and industry and the public at large with the services rendered by freight forwarders through the dissemination of information, distribution of publications.
It aims to improve the quality of services rendered by freight forwarders by developing and promoting uniform forwarding documents, standard trading conditions. Last but not least it assists with vocational training for freight forwarders, liability insurance problems, tools for electronic commerce including electronic data interchange (EDI) and barcodes.
Over the years FIATA has created several documents and forms for use by freight forwarders worldwide. The documents are easily distinguishable as each has a distinaive colour and carries the FIATA logo:
FIATA FCR (Forwarders Certificate of Receipt);
FIATA FCT (Forwarders Certificate of Transport);
FWR (FIATA Warehouse Receipt);
FBL (negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Bill of Lading);
FWB (non-negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Waybill);
FIATA SDT (Shippers Declaracion for the Transport of Dangerous Goods);
FIATA SIC (Shippers Intermodal Weight Certificate);
FFI (FIATA Forwarding Instructions);
FIATA documents have an excellent reputation and have greatly contributed to the facilitation of international exchanges. FIATA also markets a number of publicacions:
FIATA Introduction to the Regulations for the safe handling and transport of dangerous goods;
FIATA Customs Clearance Manual;
FIATA Legal Handbook on Forwarding by Peter F.M. Jones;
FIATA Code of abbreviations;
FIATA Members' list,
The Airwaybill recommended by FIATA for use by freight forwarders;
FIATA Model Rules for Freight Forwarding Services.
Bar Coded Transport Label for Freight forwarding
FIATA is offering its Individual Members an arbitration code which will permit legal disputes between forwarding agents to be settled at very low cost without going through the law courts.
It is an simple arbitration code which will permit disputes to be settled as rapidly, simply and cheaply as possible. The key elements of the code are that the arbitration tribunal will be made up of representatives from FIATA's Extended Board or Advisory Body Legal Matters (ie people from the forwarding business); the arbitration tribunal will make a ruling only if both parties have accepted the arbitration code in writing; the procedure will generally be conducted in writing and in English (no travel costs); and it will be extremely cheap (between US$ 500 and US$ 3000 for the written procedure).
FIATA's role in international organisations
FIATA has consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE), and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN/ESCAP).
Through CLECAT it is also represented at all levels of the European Union, the EU Commission, the Conference of Ministers, the European Parliament and in various parliamentary workgroups. CLECAT is the European liaison office of the forwarding industry and supports all initiatives for harmonisation and fair competition.
FIATA is also a member of the International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce (IMB-ICC).
Besides these it co-operates extensivly with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Union of Railways (UIC), the International Road Transport Union (IRU), the World Customs Organisation (WCO) as well.