ASC Permanent Secretariat at CCC

At the fifth annual meeting of the Asian Shippers' Council (ASC) held in Colombo in August 2009, it was decided that the Permanent Secretariat of the world's largest shippers' body would be re located to Sri Lanka from Singapore as the country ended 30 years of conflict.

As an outcome of this, the Executive Committee of the ASC decided to locate its permanent secretariat at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) with effect from June 1.

The Asian Shippers' Council (ASC) was formed in September 2004, integrating Shippers' Councils in all of Asia into a single entity, and is a significant milestone to the Shippers' Councils' community in Asia.

It constitutes five regions of Asia, namely South East Asia (ASEAN) North East Asia, China Region, South Asia (SAARC) and Oceania.

ASC consists of 20 shippers' councils from 16 countries in the five regions, being those from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Korea, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand , Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and affiliate member Shippers' Councils in Africa. The ASC is led by a Chairman (Currently Singapore National Shippers' Council Chairman John Lu) with an executive board consisting of the five geographical regions and supported by a Permanent Secretariat based in Colombo, headed by a Secretary General, (since 2009 September after it was transferred from Singapore).

It is a prestigious position for Sri Lanka to be in line with other major global shippers' bodies where the secretariats are situated in Brussels for EU, Washington D.C for North America, and London where the head office of the Global Shippers' Forum would be located in a near future date. The ASC is actively involved in matters related to global shipping and policies related to trade and are closely working with international organizations such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), UN agencies, European Commission (EC), and Federal Maritime commission (FMC) in addition to member countries and other regional/international organisation.

Currently ASC is actively involved in drafting policy papers with the competition commissions in member countries.

ASC has made submissions to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) drafting committee for the new rules for 'INCOTERMS 2010' edition.

A member task force is also studying the new UN initiated liability regime 'Rotterdam rules' to advise Asian governments when ratification is considered.

The council will actively contribute through it mandate to improve the efficiency in the global supply chain and will recommend policy directions in respect of, trade, transparency and matters concerning the transport industry and the environment.