The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), with 45 million institutional members in 130 countries, has joined the Singapore Government and a growing consortium of key industry partners to accelerate the digitalisation of global trade and commerce at the annual World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos
The Singapore Government, and major firms from key industries have signed a historic cooperation agreement to facilitate and accelerate the adoption of digital technologies in trade and commerce.
The global industry leaders participating in the agreement are APRIL, DBS Bank, Marubeni Corporation, Mastercard, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co., Ltd., Mizuho Bank, Ltd., MUFG Bank, Noble, NTT DATA, PSA International, Sompo Japan Nipponkoa, Standard Chartered Bank, Sumitomo Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Tokio Marine, and Trafigura.
This public-private partnership between global organisations will be a significant leap forward to shift international trade from a paper-based system to digitally-enabled trade. It will create enormous potential value based on time and operational cost savings combined with the greatly reduced incidence of fraud and human error.
“Digital platforms will lower existing barriers to international trade in the coming years and enable many more businesses to participate in the new global economy. In line with ICC’s 21st-century purpose, we are committed to enabling the broadest possible adoption of these digital technologies and support the development and recognition of universally accepted best practice standards for digitalisation, based on global consensus and the work being done by our partners today,” said John W.H. Denton AO, ICC Secretary General.
As one of the largest global trading hubs, Singapore is capitalising on its strong networks to bring together an efficient and unified process of digitalised trade. The country is partnering various international organisations, governments and industry players on the development of TradeTrust – a multilateral, open legal and technical framework, that enables inter-operability across different trade platforms and formats for the exchange of digital trade documents on a public blockchain. This strategic initiative is led by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) with the Maritime Port Authority (MPA) and supported by partner agency, Enterprise Singapore.
ICC’s Centre of Future Trade in Singapore has sought to accelerate the adoption of digital trade finance solutions through the development of innovative blockchain products. In partnership with Perlin, a Singapore-based technology company, ICC has deployed ICC TradeFlow, a blockchain platform that simplifies the trade documentation process for business.
ICC TradeFlow was co-developed by ICC together with trade tech firm, Perlin, in collaboration with IMDA, commodities trader Trafigura, and DBS Bank.
