About JAFSA

− Outline of JAFSA −

International activities

In 1990, JAFSA joined FONASBA, the Federation of National Association of Ship Brokers and Agents, a global association of shipping agents and shipping intermediaries, headquartered in London, in order to further improve JAFSA status and getting information of shipping agency industry and its activities in other countries. FONASBA’s annual general meetings are held on rotating basis among the membership countries. In 2005 convention was held in Tokyo.
In recent years, the convention has been held in Cancun, Mexico in 2018 and Miami, Florida in 2019. And this year we plan to throw in Genoa, Italy.
Mr. Takazo Iigaki, chairman of the JAFSA, was elected as the vice chairman of FONASBA in 2003, since then he works aggressively to international activities.
In recent years, Mr. Iigaki, as a vice president of FONASBA, has been visiting Asian countries and actively engaged in attracting members.
In addition, FONASBA started quality certification, FONASBA Quality Standard in October 2007.It certifies ship brokers and shipping agents with a certain level of stable management, professional operated organization and having service quality.

Over 560 companies have been certified in 40 countries as of March 2020, and 14 companies have got the certification in Japan.

Domestic activities

JAFSA makes an effort to industry groups, shipping companies, principals, related government agencies and shippers’ organizations understand properly the role of oceangoing ship agency business and put forth our best effort to further improve its status.
More specifically, the opinions and suggestions got through members at monthly board meeting, twice a year seminar and events are reflected in JAFSA's activities to build up mutual trust among members. We drive for further increase the number of members.
In particular, seminars in local city that are held every fall are a great opportunity to expand the organization nationwide, and we would like to continue to willing develop new members in the future.
Regard to the handling of tax exemption for export, because of complicated rules, interpretation by Internal Revenue Service’s "It is taxed since it does not meet the requirements for export tax exemption" was often seen after the consumption tax was introduced.
For this reason, JAFSA negotiated with the Consumption Tax Division (at that time) of the Internal Revenue Service in Japan and obtained approval of the Agency’s authorities on how we could handle various issues on tax so that ship agency does not suffer from the disadvantage of handling consumption tax and are doing actively distributing booklet authorized by the IRS to members.
Secretariate of JAFSA is continuously studying and focused on certain issue, "How to fulfill the requirements for export tax exemption".