As part of a blockchain pilot program, between Saudi Customs and IT partner Tabadul, Saudi Arabia’s cross-border trade platform FASAH has been integrated with Maersk and IBM’s TradeLens service. Saudi Customs is a governmental authority responsible for the safe and efficient import and export of trading products and associated services through land, sea and air.
In the past, Maersk and IBM experienced problems concerning their blockchain project, TradeLens. Yet, both companies seem to have overcome their difficulties by having Modern Terminals joining and supporting the project and ports such as Port of Valencia, Port of Montreal.
The pilot blockchain program aspires to connect FASAH, a Saudi Arabia’s national platform which connects all government and private entities involved in cross border trade, with TradeLens for selected services to ensure immutability, traceability, reduced reconciliation, auditability, and compliance.
Also, H.E Mr. Ahmed Alhakbani, Governor of Saudi Customs stated that the pilot aligns with Saudi Custom’s aims to facilitate trade and enhance security levels.
Saudi Customs addressed that it has been able to develop a new roadmap that takes a new approach to accelerating change across its operations through the adoption of new technologies that simplify and automate customs procedures and deliver world-class services to clients.
According to TradeLens press release, Saudi Customs is the first in the region to provide an efficient service in order to transform Saudi Arabia in a global logistics hub.
As Tarek Zarg El Aioun, Country General Manager, IBM Saudi Arabia stated
Through its adoption of blockchain-enabled TradeLens, Saudi Customs is helping transform the shipping industry in the region and enabling faster, transparent and more efficient real-time operations.
Moreover, TradeLens’ press release supports that Saudi Customs is testing the use of blockchain to create a real solution for a fragmented peer-to-peer business ecosystem in solving difficult problems such as platform challenge business challenge, data interoperability, and solution construction.
Concluding, Saudi Customs by adopting the blockchain project aspires to educate, experiment and extend to the broader ecosystem by setting realistic expectations, experimenting, understanding the decentralized nature of this technology and preparing to migrate away from the traditional platform technology.
