- Trade Facilitation Committee -

International trade, by its very nature, involves many entities beyond buyer and seller. Each develops their own association or forum to promote and resolve their own issues. The Facilitation Committee of the Marine Exchange of the San Francisco Bay Region is unique in treating all facets of international trade as an interwoven, single entity.

The San Francisco Marine Exchange Trade Facilitation Committee brings together in an informal structure representatives from the USCG, CBP, MARAD, insurers, attorneys, freight forwarders, customs brokers, ports, carriers, stevedores, bankers, Congress, and the Senate. The objective, as stated by its name, is to provide assistance, ease, support, and mitigation; to disentangle, extricate, increase accessibility, manage, influence, and promote.... facilitate trade.

We seek to reconcile issues without compromising objectives and to eliminate errors while finding procedures that will enhance services provided both independently and collectively; we seek to eliminate the question of who is to blame, and replace it with how we facilitate an amicable solution. Communication is the key; this forum encourages an open dialog amongst members with the common goal of facilitating international trade.

Chair: Fred Hosking, Hoyt Shepston, Inc.

Email: tfc@sfmx.org