GENEVA/NEW YORK: Global trade allows countries to expand their markets
across national borders which bring a great choice and availability of
containerized goods to consumers around the world, from the clothes we
wear, to the medicines and fresh produce we rely on to stay well.
However, the expansion of trade also opens opportunities to the
criminals on the fringes of society, who will always search for any
means possible to move illegal and unethical goods everywhere.
In a rare appearance by a container shipping executive talking about
the problems of illicit trade, Fabio Santucci, President of MSC
Mediterranean Shipping Company in the USA, explained to the World Trade
Symposium in New York some of the measures that MSC, a world leader in
transportation and logistics, implements to try to curb illicit trade.
Speaking to Chris Clague, who oversees the Global Illicit Trade Index
for The Economist Intelligence Unit, Fabio pointed out that Governments
in charge of curbing the trade of counterfeit goods, weapons, drugs,
ivory and other illicit goods cannot do it alone. Therefore, he called
for greater collaboration and cooperating across the industry and
between the private and public sectors.
Measures for the safety and security of containers Illicit trade
damages the global economy and harms public health worldwide. As people
continue to buy arms, drugs, animal hunting trophies and other illicit
goods on the black markets, securing global supply chains remains of
paramount importance.
“MSC is a responsible company and we implement a variety of measures to
ensure the safety and security of our containers and our customers’
cargo within them,” Fabio told an audience from business, public policy
and academia.
“To keep the supply chain safe, everybody has to participate and be actively involved” Fabio said.
Fabio referred to MSC’s know-your-customer (KYC) and cargo booking
screening protocols, which help minimise the risk of undeclared or
misdeclared cargo entering the supply chain. He added that a range of
physical security measures such as guards, sniffer dogs and even divers
are deployed at the company’s own expense in the most sensitive regions
where the risk from organized crime is most prominent.
Maintaining a culture in which crew and staff ashore feel comfortable
and incentivized to report suspicious activities is also a key part of
MSC’s approach.
Looking to the future, Fabio highlighted MSC’s advocacy for the smart
containerization of the shipping and logistics sector and the company’s
efforts to propose container tracking and monitoring solutions which are
becoming more popular with shippers and policy makers alike. "A simple
feature, such as a monitoring device, connected to the internet, which
sends an alert when a container door is unexpectedly opened, could go a
long way to enhancing container security." Fabio said.
However, everyone involved in the sector needs to take an interest in
the many advantages from smart containers in order to make this
technology a reality. “It is crucially important that the cargo owners
who are our customers understand these solutions and that everyone in
the sector comes to the table to appreciate the merits and advantages of
greater visibility of cargo flow and the enhanced security that smart
containers can bring to global trade,” he said.
Fabio also pointed out MSC’s pioneering role as a Co-Founder of the
Digital Container Shipping Industry, which is seeking to establish
digital industry standards to ease the flow of information around the
sector and facilitate the uptake of IoT-enabled (Internet of Things)
solutions such as smart containers, as well as the company’s
participation in projects to make shipping data exchange more efficient
and more secure using blockchain technologies, said a MSC release.
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