Applying for membership

Famous Pacific Shipping (FPS) Group, the Asia-based NVOCC and freight forwarding network, says it is on the hunt for new members.

2009 saw a significant expansion of the FPS network, despite the tightening global freight market, and the Group made significant inroads into established and emerging markets with the strategic appointment of general agents in the Mediterranean, central Europe and the Middle East, according to the company.

Today, through a network of subsidiary companies, exclusive partners and agents, the FPS Group is represented in more than 50 markets throughout Asia, North and South America, Europe and the Middle East.

However, as Kettivit Sittisoontornwong, FPS Logistics (Thailand) and Head of the FPS Group Advisory Board says, there are still areas of the globe where the network’s membership can be extended.

“With more than a decade of solid freight industry experience behind the Group, now is a great time to bring the benefits of the network we have created in some of the world’s most vibrant and profitable freight markets, to freight forwarders in emerging markets that would like to gain access to the Group’s reach and contacts,” he says.

“We are particularly keen to attract new freight forwarding members from the Commonwealth of Independent States, countries around the Black Sea, North Africa, and parts of the FSU, countries such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.”

Traditionally strongest in Asia Pacific, Australasia, North America, the Middle East and western Europe, the FPS Group is a truly international network of independent freight forwarders who meet once a year for an Annual General Meeting and conference to conduct business, network with other FPS network members and keep abreast of what the network is doing.

“I would say to forwarders in the regions we are targeting that joining the FPS Group as a member is a two-way street,” Sittisoontornwong continues. “Any newly appointed representative forwarding company benefits immediately from Group membership by being in contact with 70 member companies in 54 countries; all of which control significant amounts of freight. The existing members of the network benefit by gaining access and certified representation in new markets.

‘We are always looking for ways to increase our membership. Our unrivalled background, knowledge and experience of the Chinese freight market, with both import and export activity, means that by joining the FPS Group, forwarders gain access into the most vital and profitable market in 2010 and the years to come.”