On August 25, 2016 @Hamburg, Germany, Ziaul Haque Munim (University of Agder) and Dr. Hans-Joachim Schramm (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Copenhagen Business School) received the Best Paper Award at the Annual conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) 2016 for their contribution “Forecasting Container Shipping Freight Rates for the Far East-Northern Europe Trade Lane”. In this study they approached a new time series forecast model which they called “ARIMARCH” and also discussed the container shipping supply, demand and freight rate dynamics.
IAME is the largest and most prestigious conference for the maritime researchers. At IAME2016, there were more than 200 research articles authored by about 500 top scholars from all over the world. While talking about expectations, Ziaul replied “I can only say I was very happy when the codes for the first time gave the results on a very cold winter midnight that I had in my imagination and had the feeling that shippers/carriers gonna save lots of money. I was very happy when we found the dramatic peaks and bumps in some of the fitted values of SCFI in our model were due to the GRIs and we could forecast the rest quite accurately. And last but not the least, I am very happy about all the supports I received from Dr. Schramm, and all the efforts he put into the paper. However, to the best of knowledge, Dr. Schramm was always hopeful about this paper.”
Ziaul completed his BBA form Eastern Univversity, Bangladesh in 2011. Before joining as a PhD Research Fellow at the University of Agder, he pursued his M.Sc in Supply Chian Management at Vienna University of School and Business. In the upcoming week, he is also starting with the Oxford Leadership Program on Global Transport Challenges at the University of Oxford.
To add a bit of history, Ziaul’s father worked a very long period of time as one of the Directors of Chittagong Port Authority, Bangladesh. Following that, he grew up in the port area. But he never really realized that he is getting into the same business. He believes, there’s a lot more to do, a very long way to go.
In the photo, Ziaul and Dr. Schramm with Jan Hoffmann (President of IAME, and Chief, Trade Facilitation Section of UNCTAD) and Prof. Hercules Haralambides (Editor, Maritime Economics and Logistics) while receiving the award.