Singapore Launches Pilot of TradeTrust Blockchain Shipping Initiative

The Singapore government will press ahead with a pilot of its blockchain-based maritime trade platform TradeTrust through an official partnership, trade news outlet Asia Middle East Maritime Focus reported on March 7.

TradeTrust, which aims to leverage blockchain to streamline complex manual processes involved in international shipping, will first focus on blockchain-powered electronic bills of lading (EB-Ls).

Processing the essential trade document can often incur long time spans and considerable extra costs using paper-based methods.

The pilot follows a January Memorandum of Understanding signed by Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Maritime Port Authority, Singapore Customs and the Singapore Shipping Association.

As part of the TradeTrust pilot, the IMDA will also gather feedback on the initiative, as well as requesting industry advice on how to best implement it in future.

“TradeTrust is an initiative to develop a set of standards to help businesses securely exchange digital trade documents,” the publication quoted Singapore’s Minister for Communications and Information, S. Iswaran, as telling parliament on March 4.

Transferring EB-L issuance to blockchain has become a preoccupation of various schemes worldwide. As Cointelegraph reported, Singapore was also involved in a project by IBM and shipping company Pacific International Lines last month.

Elsewhere, HSBC in India has also experimented with the idea, along with Israel’s largest cargo shipping company, Zim.