The transportation of goods by sea is the main way of international transportation, and about 90% of the goods in international trade are carried by sea. The maritime cargo transportation not only includes the process and a series of documents and procedures, but also involves the parties related to the transportation law, and the freight forwarder is one of them. As far as the forwarder is concerned, it is important to be able to identify various procedures related to the shipping stack to provide good shipping services to the owner. As the owner, the proper choice of freight forwarder means choosing the right maritime person and the suitable transportation mode suitable for the trade contract, so as to effectively fulfill the legal obligations stipulated in the trade contract, so as to protect their rights and interests as the cargo owner.

Smart owners will choose those with good reputation, and the following factors can be considered for the selection of Freight Forwarders:

1、 Freight forwarders must be familiar with the common sense of shipping geography. First, as an international freight forwarder, due to the different countries, the ship should be familiar with the world geography and routes, the location of the port, the transfer place and its inland distribution center. Secondly, freight forwarders should also understand the mode of international trade and its development trend, the flow of goods, etc., such as Western Europe and the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries with high degree of industrialization, import raw materials from developing countries in large quantities and export industrial manufactured goods to these countries.

2、 Freight forwarders should be familiar with the applicability of different types of transport to the goods. There are four modes of transportation in the world shipping market: liner transportation, charter ship transportation, non carrier transportation and multimodal transport. Liner transportation is characterized by fixed time, route, port order and rate. Charter shipping is irregular transportation, which means that there is no fixed route and schedule. According to the supply and demand relationship of shipping market, it can engage in operation on any route. The freight rate can be negotiated and suitable for bulk bulk cargo transportation. The NVOCC refers to the carrier engaged in regular operation, but does not own or operate the ship required for sea transportation. The NVOCC is the carrier identity relative to the actual shipper, but also the shipper's identity compared with the actual carrier. For the shipper or the shipper, choosing the appropriate transportation mode depends on whether the freight forwarder is superior to the following aspects of business:

1. The periodicity of transportation service, if the goods must be transported out within a certain time, liner transportation shall be selected; 2. Transportation speed; 3. Transportation cost, when the transportation time and speed are not the main factors considered by the shipper or the cargo owner, the freight rate will become the most important; 4. The reliability of transportation shall be tested before selecting the shipping company to be entrusted by the freight

To inspect its strength and credibility to reduce the possibility of becoming a victim of maritime fraud; 5. The operation status and responsibility, on the surface, a ship owner has ownership of the ship, but in fact he mortgaged the ship to the bank and became an operator through the business contract with the bank. This will bring negative impact on the interests of the owner when the dispute of cargo transportation will be brought to court in the future.

3、 The freight forwarder should understand the adaptability of different types of ships to the cargo of the owner. As freight forwarders, we must understand the characteristics of the ship, such as the country of registration and tonnage of the ship, the gross registered tons (GRT), the net registered tons (NRT), bulk cellars, packing cellars, total DWT, load lines, classification and other aspects. The better freight forwarders should also know several types of cargo ships, such as liner, semi container ship, half pallet ship, bulk carrier, roll on board and full container ship. The third generation container ship has the capacity of carrying the container from 2000 to 3000teu, and can pass through the Panama Canal, so it is also called Panama type ship. Ships of the fourth generation and with greater capacity for carrying containers are not suitable for passage through the Barna canal, often referred to as superba ships.

4、 First class freight forwarders should be familiar with shipping regulations. Besides the Hague Rules, the Westby rules and Hamburg Rules, the maritime laws and regulations of the countries where the goods are exported or destination are to be properly understood, such as the port operating habits, etc.

5、 First class freight forwarders shall be proficient in the operation of documents for the carriage of goods by sea and ensure the correct, clear and timely production of the base. The main shipping documents include bill of lading, sea waybill, manifest, delivery order, bill of lading, packing list, port station receipt, chief and vice versa.

6、 Better freight forwarders should understand customs procedures and port operations. In the import and export trade, customs clearance is a traditional function of freight forwarder. In the dual relationship between freight forwarder and customs authorities and its customers, the laws of freight forwarders are different from each other, but customs agents are usually authorized by the government. Customer (i.e. the owner 0 shall consider the identity of the forwarder as the customs agent, whether it has the ability to protect the responsibilities of both the client and the customs authority in the process of performing its duties. Freight forwarder has the agent ability of handling the formalities of departure, bonded storage and inland customs clearance, and the operation ability of port procedure is very important. In addition, the lower freight rate that freight forwarders can provide is also an important factor to consider, and freight forwarders are closely related to liner rates. Of course, the investigation of freight forwarders should pay attention to other factors such as credit. The operation of first-class freight forwarders is very important for the owner to complete the trade contract.