Local talent shines in global competition

IN A major coup for the local freight forwarding industry, Vijay Cook of Birkart Globistics was named “Young International Freight Forwarder of the Year” for the Africa/Middle East region. The award, sponsored by Fiata, Iata and the TT Club, is open to all young freight forwarders who have been working full-time in the forwarding industry for at least two years. The competition involves a case study in the international movement of goods in which the candidate must demonstrate analytical and problem solving skills. Cook is the first African to have won the award and to have achieved his competence through a wholly web-based training programme, provided here by Global Trade Training. The bumper prize includes three weeks of practical and academic training overseas. In 2001 Birkart Globistics joined seven other major freight forwarders, a black empowerment investor and the German development agency GTZ in supporting the establishment of Global Trade Training to raise the professionalism of South Africa’s freight forwarding industry. Plans are afoot to use the e-learning facility developed by GTT to train Birkart Globistics staff elsewhere in the world.