SAGT becomes first Sri Lankan terminal to join TradeLens

A major step towards digitizing manual, time-consuming processes powered by blockchain technology will offer greater ease of doing business across the supply chain.

SAGT, the first Public Private Partnership (PPP) container terminal in Sri Lanka, also became the first terminal in the country to adopt blockchain technology by collaborating with TradeLens, a digital platform jointly developed by A.P. Moller – Maersk and IBM. This move will help in accelerating the digitization agenda of shipping industry in Sri Lanka by transforming manual, paper-based and time-consuming administrative processes into digital ones.

The collaboration with TradeLens will allow SAGT, with an annual throughput of over 2 million TEU containers, to bring together data from the entire global supply chain ecosystem that includes shippers, shipping lines, ports and many more supply chain players from around the world. This data, based on the blockchain-powered TradeLens platform, will improve operational efficiency through better visibility of container flows across multiple modes.

TradeLens provides visibility across the entire supply chain, from booking to clearance to payments and is built on a wealth of input from the industry including direct integrations with more than 110 ports and terminals, 15+ customs authorities around the world and an increasing number of intermodal providers.

Bimal Kanal, Head of TradeLens, South Asia, said: “TradeLens is an open and neutral platform that is digitalising the global supply chain ecosystem. With SAGT coming onboard, we have an important partner in South Asia which believes in our efforts of bringing efficiencies in logistics and thus helping our customers in bringing down cost of logistics.

“Our ambition is to have all stakeholders including shippers, shipping lines, ports, banks, custom authorities and so on, involved in the global supply chain to be on a common platform that will benefit the entire industry.”

Image credit: Iosif Gromadko / Shutterstock.com

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