Indonesia’s Customs And Excise Department To Adopt IBM-Maersk Blockchain Shipping Platform

Blockchain, News | February 20, 2020 By:

Indonesia’s Customs and Excise Department is planning to use blockchain shipping platform TradeLens to improve the speed, accuracy and security of local and international shipping.

TradeLens, jointly developed by Maersk and IBM, is a global trade platform built on IBM blockchain that is designed to reduce the cost of global shipping, improve visibility across supply chains and eliminate inefficiencies stemming from paper-based processes. It currently has more than 100 participants and is already processing over ten million discrete shipping events and thousands of documents each week, providing shippers, carriers, freight forwarders, customs officials, port authorities, inland transportation providers, and others a common view of transactions.

The Indonesia Customs and Excise Department, which sits under the Ministry of Finance, will be the third government agency in Southeast Asia to use the TradeLens platform. TradeLens will enable authorities to receive shipping data as soon as containers leave the port of origin, which will give the Customs and Excise Department more time to prepare to receive shipments, thereby enabling more efficient and thorough fraud and forgery inspections as well as more consistent and transparent revenue collection processes.

Agus Sudarmadi, Custom and Excise Director, said that the department aims to leverage the blockchain solution to simplify the exchange of goods, automate documentation and increase co-operation and communication between counterparties.

“The supply chain is an important factor in managing the logistics costs and Indonesian logistics costs are relatively higher compared to other countries in South East Asia,” said Sudarmadi. “TradeLens will help bring further visibility, predictability and security to us and will be a real asset for trade and transport facilitation, making Indonesia the preferred logistics and transport gateway in this region. It will also enable us to fulfill our mission to facilitate trade and to promote national logistics systems as well as contribute to the development of the national economy while meeting the most up-to-date standards set by the World Customs Organisation (WCO).”

According to the press release, more than $16 trillion USD worth of goods is shipped across international borders each year, with some 80 percent transported by the ocean shipping industry. Paper-based procedures cause a number of pain points felt throughout the global supply chain, including inconsistent and inaccurate information, delays and disruptions (due to manual checking and data input), the inability to provide thorough risk assessments, the promotion of complex, inefficient and costly stakeholder communication, and a lack of transparency.

“We are proud to acknowledge this collaboration with the Indonesia Customs and Excise Department to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the logistics sector both at domestic and international levels,” said Tan Wijaya, President Director of IBM Indonesia. “We believe that TradeLens, and the implementation of blockchain technology in various forms, will benefit all stakeholders in the entire logistics ecosystem and drive the modernization of trade at all levels. We also hope other industries will soon realize the need for blockchain adoption which can help businesses to redefine their relationships in the market through increased trust, transparency and newfound collaboration.”