Indonesia Customs and Excise Department has announced to adopt IBM and Maersk’s blockchain-powered shipping solution, TradeLens. The news follows the department’s initial announcement that it would join the TradeLens consortium late last year.

TradeLens was officially launched in August 2018 by IBM, in partnership with Danish transport conglomerate Maersk. The platform allows more efficient and accurate container tracking and information sharing among users. It facilitates instantaneous and immutable end-to-end data by digitizing formerly paper-based shipping processes.

The president director of IBM Indonesia, Tan Wijaya, said this partnership will benefit all stakeholders in the entire logistics ecosystem and encourage the overall modernization of trade.

According to the Custom and Excise Director Agus Sudarmadi, the department aims to leverage the blockchain solution to simplify the exchange of goods. He added that the solution will also enable automation of documents and increase co-operation and communication between counterparties.

Sudarmadi further stated that the Collaboration Application Interface (API) concept will enable all logistics activities to be brought together and shared through the TradeLens platform. Some of the logistics activities include trucking, warehousing, shipping and freight forwarding at both domestic and global levels.

The department has now become the eleventh government agency to join the TradeLens consortium. Other members that have join the consortium include the customs authorities of Thailand, Peru, Azerbaijan, Ghana and Canada, among others.