launched<\/a> in 2018 by Maersk and IBM, is seen as crucial for cutting costs in an industry that has seen little innovation since the container was invented in the 1950s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current circumstances have shown that digitalisation of the logistic supply chain is picking up pace,\u201d Vincent Clerc, Maersk\u2019s chief commercial officer, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, despite more than 200 ports, shipping lines, freight forwarders, port authorities and customs authorities having signed up, the platform has yet to reach a \u201ccritical mass\u201d to make a significant impact, Clerc said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In many African countries, Maersk relies on fleets of motorcycles known as \u2018boda bodas\u2019 to deliver documents between ports and shipping agents.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe physical flow of documents with courier and local deliveries on bicycles, all of that will eventually go away,\u201d Clerc said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It currently takes an average of 228 hours to get the necessary documents and stamps ready for shipping a container with citrus fruits out of South Africa. (Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Pravin Char)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.<\/em><\/p>\ngCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ports operator DP World said on Thursday it would join shipping company Maersk and other peers in a blockchain platform aimed at limiting the sector\u2019s costly paper trail. \u201cThe situation around the coronavirus is a very good catalyst for making sure everyone in the supply chain can communicate with each other digitally,\u201d Mike Bhaskaran, DP …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[6943,1678,3797,1106,1396,1913],"class_list":["post-10630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-accelerating","tag-digital","tag-lockdown","tag-push","tag-shippings","tag-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/10631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}