Tues. Sep 19,2006 15:35 pm ET
By Jimmy Tian
SHANGHAI(JCtrans.net)-The opening ceremony 2006 annual meeting was held in Shanghai International Convention Centre by International Federation of Forwarding Agent’s Associations (FIATA) on 18th Sep.2006, it was held in China for the first time since FIATA set up 80 years ago.

China''''s freight forwarding and logistics has been growing 1.4 times for five years, hitting 500 billion U.S. dollars in 2010 scale. Shanghai''''s container handling capacity has more than 18 million TEUs, ranking the third in the world''''s ports, the total cargo handling capacity of Shanghai ranking the first in the world. China''''s rapid economic development contains tremendous business opportunities in Shanghai and has attracted the all FIATA members attending this meeting.

According to the organizer, the registered attendee reached more than 880 people, the most in the history, including representatives from 85 countries and regions. 14 more countries and regions were increased for this session compared to annual meeting that was held in Moscow last year.

At the opening ceremony FIATA President said, international freight forwarding and logistics giants were unwilling to come to Asia for development before, but now no one wants "to be absent in China." China''''s freight forwarding and logistics industry shows its enormous growth potential, so each FIATA members "want to have a share" from it.

It is reported that 10 of the world''''s top logistics enterprises and the top 50 shipping companies have set up their branches in Shanghai. The President said that more open economic environment will provide more favorable conditions for the global freight forwarding and logistics industry’s development in the next few years.

But China''''s freight forwarding and logistics industry in inventory, logistics enterprise fund and turnover rate still lags far behind compared with the developed countries. Chinese State Councilor, Wu Yi also admits this point in her congratulatory letter to FIATA, and she hoped that the annual meeting would expand Chinese logistics industry cooperation with foreign countries, and contribute international trade development.

FIATA, founded in 1926, is a global transport and logistics industry and the largest non-governmental and non-profit international organization, and has broad influence in the field of international trade.