- As part of the strategic partnership with the organization TradeMark East Africa, the IOTA Foundation is working on the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP).
- The Tangle-based data pipeline aims to improve the trade of East African countries with foreign trading partners.
In a video update the IOTA Foundation gave an update on its strategic partnership with TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) yesterday. The partnership became public just a month ago and aims to improve trade in East Africa by using IOTA’s Distributed Ledger technology. TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) is one of the most respected organizations in the East African region and is known worldwide for its work to improve livelihoods through improved trading conditions.
IOTA and TMEA develop data pipeline for East Africa
A first project on which the IOTA Foundation and TMEA are working is the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), which aims to create a “technology highway of interconnectivity” through which East African companies and government agencies can communicate with each other and with international partners in a transparent and secure manner. As stated on the TLIP project page, it is being developed by the financial authorities of the region, partner government agencies and the IOTA Foundation. The latter announced about TLIP via Twitter:
The Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP) – an essential pillar of our partnership w/@TradeMarkEastA – aims to create more trust & visibility in the global supply chain for African Businesses.
The Trade Logistics Information Pipeline aims to improve the information exchange between trade actors across borders by removing fraud-prone paper documents from the supply chain, thereby maintaining information integrity and eliminating lengthy verification procedures by authorities. TLIP will also provide a transparent, efficient and cost-effective way to manage trade information across borders through the use of bilateral information exchange agreements between East Africa and its foreign trading partners.
Studies have shown that East African goods need more time to be cleared in European ports because of the non-transparent documentation. For example, Brazilian coffee is cleared to Europe faster than Ugandan coffee. The main reason for the difference is the documentation process that Ugandan coffee has to go through compared to other types of coffee.
TLIP aims to address this discrepancy in order to provide European authorities and companies with reliable real-time information on the content and nature of coffee exports from Uganda. Jens Munch Lund-Nielsen of the IOTA Foundation explained the objectives of the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline:
The technology we use with the Distributed Ledger is permissionless and about bringing trust to all actors so that they trust each other when they exchange the data. The cross-border trade cost has an enormous on the cost of goods, the cost of goods has an enormous on how much jobs and how much we can buy. The Tulip project we are working on in Kenya will have an enormous impact on traders in Kenya. It shortens the time to cross borders, it takes out failures, it makes it much cheaper for the products overseas
According to TLIP’s website, the project has a total value of around 4 million USD and will be implemented between 2019 and 2020. Below you will find the video of TLIP shared yesterday by the IOTA Foundation.
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