Public-private consultation workshop on digitising maritime trade in Sri Lanka

• Businesses to benefit through reduced time and cost in international trade

Sri Lanka Customs (SLC) is making continuous efforts to improve digital access to sea cargo information. The digitalisation of processes will benefit local businesses through faster export and import in maritime trade. On 10 March, SLC and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH hosted a private sector consultation workshop in the context of their joint project ‘Digitising Global Maritime Trade’. 

The workshop created space for the private sector to provide feedback and recommendations to ensure a smooth adaptation to new procedures for a most effective outcome. 

“This workshop is a great opportunity to discuss how digital exchange of information benefits customs and the business community alike” stated Sri Lanka Customs Director General Retired Major General Vijitha Ravipriya in his opening remarks. 

The workshop brought together experts from SLC and other related Government agencies, and key representatives from the industry, such as exporters and importers, shipping lines and logistics service providers. 

Due to the new procedures, businesses will be able to share sea cargo information in a digital format with SLC prior to importing and exporting sea cargo. The access to this digital information will allow SLC to process the cargo prior to arrival and departure. 

Thus, they will be able to determine in advance which cargoes to inspect, and which to release – saving time and costs for shipping lines, cargo handlers, trucking companies, as well as for importers and exporters themselves. The project thereby contributes towards facilitating trade – a topic of high relevance for the governments of Germany and Sri Lanka. 

Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Sri Lanka Holger Seubert states: “Trade is a driver for economic development and prosperity. Through this project we want to support Sri Lanka to simplify export and import procedures which will benefit the competitiveness of the Sri Lankan economy.” 

Reducing dwelling times at the port terminals and further down the supply chain is also expected to lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to make maritime trade more sustainable.  

The businesses also witnessed a demonstration of the digital solution, ASYHUB, that will enable the digital exchange of sea cargo information with SLC. The ASYHUB solution was developed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The private sector’s feedback will ensure that the upcoming implementation of the new procedures will be commercially meaningful. Their views and recommendations on the new procedures provide a basis for the capacity building activities to support the onboarding process for businesses.  Sri Lanka Customs is working in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the private sector in the project Digitising Global Maritime Trade (DGMT).The project is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). 

In the DGMT project, public and private sector partners work together to improve customs’ digital access to advance sea cargo information. The project is implementing a new data integration solution called ASYHUB, which enables seamless exchange of sea cargo data between Sri Lanka Customs and trade data providers involved in the maritime trading process. 

Already engaged as one of the first project partners, the platform TradeLens covers more than half of global containerised trade. Within the project, it provides advance sea cargo data to test data integration with ASYHUB. Other trade information providers will follow since the project is open to all interested parties. The access to digital information will allow Sri Lanka Customs to process the cargo prior to arrival and departure to determine earlier which cargoes to inspect, and which to release, reducing the time and costs of maritime trade for importers and exporters.