DUBAI: All freight forwarders operating from the Philippines should be accredited with the Fair Trade Enforcement Bureau (FTEB) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said Commercial Attaché Eric Elnar, stressing that this assures the company’s legal status.
“Accreditation with DTI is important as this gives recognition or credibility to the legal existence of the freight company, authorizing the entity to engage in freight forwarding business,” Elnar said.
“To promote and protect the interest of the shipping public, FTEB helps to professionalize the freight forwarding industry by granting accreditation based on certain criteria to weed out those companies that are not yet ready and qualified to engage in the business,” he explained.
Elnar added that the FTEB regularly issues the latest list of accredited seafreight forwarders and their foreign agents which is available at the DTI’s website: http://www.dti.gov.ph/consumers/accredited-seafreight-forwarders.
“We wish to remind OFWs to send their balikbayan boxes only through freight forwarding companies accredited by the DTI. This is to ensure that they are not dealing with ‘fly-by-night cargo companies who are usually the subject of complaints of missing or undelivered balikbayan boxes,” Elnar said.
