[ ANERA Restructures Service Contracting for 1997 ]

Member shipping lines in the Asia North America Eastbound Rate
Agreement(ANERA) have made dramatic new changes to the way the
Agreement will negotiate service contracs for the 1997-98 contract
season.
For complex contracts with high-volume shippers, ANERA has initiated
a pilot program that will offer greater negotiating flexibility and
permit more direct discussions between individual shippers and the
specific ANERA carriers they use. Smaller ANERA contract accounts
will benefit from internal changes designed to shorten negotiations,
increase lead time in receiving initial contract offers and develop
contract rates which more precisely reflect up-to-the-minute market
conditions.
ANERA said it will offer customers tendering 3,000 40-foot
containers(FEU) or more annually a new contract negotiating option,
beginning in mid-Ferbruary. Accounts choosing this option may
appoint a “negotiation team” of one or more ANERA member line
representatives to negotiate and conclude a service contract.
Each team will begin contract discussions with a set of broad price
and service parameters pre-approved by ANERA as a group.
Within those parameters, the team of individual carriers will have
authority to sign an ANERA group contract or a “joint contract”
with two or more individual carriers that is only physically filed by
ANERA. Each account may only conclude one full group or joint
contract.
It will not be necessary for the customer to place any proposal
before the full ANERA group, or work through the ANERA office. The
customer will set the time, place and frequency of meetings. At any
time, the customer may add carriers to the team. However, carriers
already nominated to the negotiating team may not be dropped. The
customer may also, at any point in the negotiations, switch back to
the traditional method of negotiation with ANERA as a group.
“This new option is something both our customers and our members
have wanted,”said ANERA managing director Brian M. Conrad. “It
reflects the changing competitive and regulatory landscape in which
we operate, while allowing ANERA to reduce management layers and
negotiating time for our most complicated contracts and thereby
better allocate time and staff resources throughout the contracting
period.” Conrad noted that it would be not be possible in terms of
member line staff to extend the offer to all contract accounts at one
time, especially since group negotiations of smaller contracts tend
take less time.
Customers committing fewer than 3,000 FEU will negotiate service
contracts with ANERA in the traditional manner, but ANERA has taken
steps to simplify and expedite the process. An internal ANERA
service contracting committee, that includes representatives from all
memberlines, will be dedicated to developing market, commodity and
historic rate information, in preparation for issuing initial
contract offers.
Offers will go out in early March, affording accounts more tome to
review offers and respond. Rate proposals will more accurately
reflect levels at which cargo currently moves--under tariff and under
comparable contracts--as a result of more comprehensive advance
research. Conrad predicted that this streamlined new approach will
shorten negotiations and alleviate past competitive concerns voiced
by small and medium-sized contract accounts.
ANERA is a ratemaking group of 11 ocean and intermodal transportation
companies serving the trade from Asia(exept Japan) to port and inland
destinations throughout the United States.