{"id":1448,"date":"2020-08-24T06:58:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T06:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apacedigitalcargo.com\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2020-08-24T06:58:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T06:58:41","slug":"an-exclusive-interview-with-cyrus-katgara-partner-jeena-co-and-president-air-cargo-forum-of-india-acfi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/2020\/08\/24\/an-exclusive-interview-with-cyrus-katgara-partner-jeena-co-and-president-air-cargo-forum-of-india-acfi\/","title":{"rendered":"An exclusive interview with Cyrus Katgara, Partner, Jeena & Co and President, Air Cargo Forum of India (ACFI)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Cyrus Katgara, Partner – Jeena & Company and President of Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy responsibility is towards profitability and prosperity for all stakeholders\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Cyrus Katgara<\/em><\/strong>,\none of the known and humble personalities in the air cargo fraternity, has set\nan example in the industry with their business of generations, being the Partner – Jeena & Company. <\/strong>Such\nvast experience and presence in the air cargo industry is the requirement for\nthe growth and betterment of the industry and therefore, it is glad to see him\ntaking a new role as President of Air\nCargo Forum India (ACFI)<\/strong>, an association of air cargo logistics industry in\nIndia. In an exclusive interview with Apace\nDigital Cargo, <\/strong>he shares his role and responsibilities and strategy to boost\nthe sector working in coordination with government, airports and agents. In\naddition, he shares a positive approach towards the revival of the industry\npost Covid-19. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin with, first of all congratulations\nfor the presidency of ACFI. Please share your association with ACFI. And what\nare the key responsibilities being president at the forum?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am one of the\nfounding members of ACFI. The past eight years have been an amazing\njourney for us. ACFI being the first and only association of air cargo\nlogistics supply chain industry in India having membership from the entire\nsegment of the air cargo logistics supply chain industry. My major\nresponsibilities include creating an environment of profitability and\nprosperity for all stakeholders, supporting ACFI’s vision of going paperless\nand promoting airfreight as a key supply chain function. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the key agenda at the ACFI? What is\nthe strategy to strengthen the role of the Forum among the air cargo\nfraternity?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The forum came\ninto being with the realization that the efficiency of the entire chain of Air\ncargo movement is determined by the least efficient parts of the process\nhandled by any of the stakeholders. In order to bring overall efficiency in the\nentire chain of air cargo, the strategy was to have a more collaborative\napproach between various stakeholders such as Forwarders, Customs Brokers\n, Custodians, Terminal operators Carriers to overcome the bottlenecks and\ninformation lags. The first step was to create a platform to address\noperational, regulatory and compliance, matters in a collaborative manner.\nSecond step was to jointly represent with a common cohesive voice, the\nregulatory matters that need government intervention. So far we have been very\neffective on both the fronts and results are huge reduction in dwell time both\nin exports and imports from the time ACFI became active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being in the new normal of social\ndistancing, how will ACFI ensure continuous connection with the industry? Is\nweb interactions, meetings or other digital platforms the solution to this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, web\ninteractions are proving to be more efficient and more frequent, as we are able\nto save a lot of commuting time for physical meetings and also able to find\nmore suitable slots for the meetings. The meetings are more focused and sharing\nof the meeting material online is also much more efficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 To strengthen the air cargo\nscenario specially post Covid-19, government and airports have a greater\nrole to play. So, what are your expectations and demands regarding the\nsame?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Yes,\nGovernments and Airports have the key role to play in post Covid-19 recovery.\nGovernment should reduce the overall direct and indirect tax burden on this\nindustry by rationalization of indirect taxation on fuel. Airports can also\nwork on their Airport related services tariffs to make Air cargo more\neconomical and more attractive to end users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other low\nhanging fruit is to process simplification, automation and digitization of the\nentire chain of processes to ensure paperless movement of documents and\ninformation and faceless clearance of cargo. That will increase manpower\nproductivity and cut handling costs incurred by various stakeholders in the\nchain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, what is your message to the air\ncargo fraternity amid this grim situation of Covid-19? What is the outlook for\nthe industry in the near future? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bounce back of the cargo has been much faster in the months of June and July than expected and we hope the trend will continue. The initial response of shock to paralysis to the Covid is now translating into a more calibrated, realistic and effective response by all the agencies involved including government as well as private commercial entities of all kinds. We have a better understanding about dos and don\u2019ts in this situation of pandemic. Greater and greater sensitivity is disseminating the masses to take measures that enable economic activity along with precautions. We are learning to live with this pandemic and soon we expect the economy to be back on track with little impact on health risk or economic risk.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview by:<\/strong> Jasleen Kaur. jasleen@apacedigitalcargo.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy responsibility is towards profitability and prosperity for all stakeholders\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/md-ht-3.bigrock.tempwebhost.net\/~apacewut\/newwebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}