Freight Forwarders Forum

International trade has always been very important and the most successful civilizations of the past have thrived and prospered thanks to their ability to create and facilitate trade both internally and with neighboring states and empires. Peaceful trading has been always the recipe for prosperity and better living conditions. The ancient “Silk Road” between East and West and the Roman empire roads and just two of the many examples where trade facilitation was considered the crucial element to ensure peoples’ prosperity. With free trade increasingly challenged on several fronts in recent times and in the light of recent trends observed in US trade policies (as well as in other countries), freight forwarders and logistics service providers decide to speak up to reconvene the benefits of the open, liberal and global trading system which has been built in the last few decades and has ensured better living conditions to the vast majority of humanity. Economic globalization has sadly become the scapegoat to justify many internal shortcomings, but local and global problems are not caused by it. China’s President Xi mentioned at this year’s World Economic Forum(1) that unrestricted international commerce promotes harmony of interests among nations, increases social welfare, leads to a more efficient allocation of resources, in particular, if they are scarce, and spreads innovations across the globe. Fighting poverty and promoting trade liberalization are partners in development. As the OECD explains, open economies grow faster. Open markets matter as trade openness can be tangibly measured in terms of economic growth, productivity, and a higher standard of living. There is more: stronger institutions, better infrastructure, and even peace, in the long run, depend on well-functioning and unrestricted international trade. Concretely, the World Bank reported that per capita real income grew more than three times faster for developing countries that lowered trade barriers (5.0% per year) than other developing countries (1.4% per year) in the 1990s. (3) There are concerns that undoing the free trade agreements may actually work in the opposite direction. Furthermore, the development of an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading system is part of Millennium Development Goal 8, which seeks a global partnership for development. Thus, free trade is an opportunity, not a risk, for all regions including developed, developing, landlocked developing, and least-developed countries. FIATA members take the view that free, facilitated international trade directly contributes to the achievement of the majority of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, 1,