Ottawa : Two of Canada’s government-owned structures, the federal Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Port of Montreal Authority (MPA) have joined TradeLens, the joint blockchain shipping platform of IBM and Maersk. CBSA and MPA revealed separately on Thursday their plans to analyze how distributed ledger technology (DLT) can improve their services.
CBSA, which manages 58,600 commercial releases, 14,400 trucks, 240,000 mail items, and 127,400 courier shipments on a daily basis, also collects more than C$88.2 million ($67.4 million) in duty and taxes. Therefore, the agency wants to find new solutions to make its daily tasks easier and cost-efficient. CBSA will trial TradeLens system to see whether blockchain can cut operational expenses, bring more security, and speed up the working process by reducing the number of transactions necessary to make a release decision for shipments. The CBSA will also focus on DLT impact on transparency issues by tracking cargo movements.
