A record number of members, 300 of them, attended the conference. Those members, who came from both the IFLN Network and its specialist IFLN Global Projects network, benefited from an invaluable opportunity for networking and relationship building, and took full advantage by involving themselves in a record-breaking total of more than 6,000 One-2-One meetings.

Michel Vanlerberghe, IFLN’s president, discussed the network’s focus for 2019 and emphasis at this year’s conference – Partnership, Integration and Specialization – elements that remain key to the group’s ongoing success. “If we look at the most successful businesses nowadays, we will see that they have recognized and excel in having the most efficient supply chain management for their company, not only in order to be ahead of the competition, but also for their long-term sustainability,” he said.

“Their success is also due to innovation, specialization and strategic partnership to challenge and overtake their competitors.“

The IFLN Global Projects network will continue to expand alongside its parent IFLN Network, enabling its specialized project cargo forwarding members to work closely together to pursue global turnkey projects. The former now has twice as many members as it did at last year’s IFLN annual conference in Montreal, Canada, and the good news for the project cargo sector is that there are now positive signs of growth, particularly in the mining, power generation, and oil & gas sectors.

Moreover, IFLN has big plans to expand into wholly new specialized areas of activity. Thus, IFLN is to establish a new Healthcare and Pharma network to support its current members who are active in this market, as well as to attract other forwarders who work in this challenging segment.