TradeWaltz and MineHub announce collaboration toward full electronic trade in the metal resources industry ～Conducted collaboration PoC utilizing Sumitomo Corporation’s Copper Ore Import～

TradeWaltz Inc.
MineHub Technologies Inc.

 TradeWaltz Inc and MineHub Technologies Inc. are pleased to announce the commencement of collaboration towards system linkage between TradeWaltz®, a trade information collaboration platform, and MineHub, a platform for digitizing the supply chain.
 As the first step of the collaboration, a proof of concept (PoC) was conducted on March 23, using a Sumitomo Corporation copper ore import transaction. The results suggest up to a 60% improvement in business efficiency. The results were reported at the Digital Trade Conference hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce UK on April 7.

■Metal resources support our daily lives

 Although metal resources do not seem very familiar to us, many of our lives are supported by them. The wires that supply electricity to our cell phones and electric lights we use every day are made of copper, the houses we live in and the cars we drive are made of iron, and many of our daily necessities are made of aluminum and other metals.
 Japan, a country with limited resources, is unable to mine most of these raw “metal resources” and must rely on imports from resource-rich countries. If import trade procedures and logistics are disrupted in the future, daily life will be gradually affected.

■ Analog issues facing trade

 As mentioned in many media outlets, most intercompany and government trade procedures are now carried out via analog means, such as using paper documents and emails with PDFs. As a result, many problems have arisen such as inefficiencies due to the repeated need to replace paper documents with data in the company’s system, inability to work remote even during these Corona times, and the lack of real-time logistics and inventory information, which makes it difficult to recover when logistics are disrupted due to conflicts or pandemics. With Japan’s declining birthrate and aging population making it increasingly difficult to secure a full work force, it is necessary to promote digitization and streamlining of trade procedures.

■Trade digitization being promoted around the world to maintain our lives

 To solve this issue, in Japan a consortium of representatives of trade practitioners has been working with the government to build TradeWaltz, a cross-industry trade information collaboration platform. Utilizing blockchain technology, TradeWaltz Inc have fully digitized trade procedures in Japan under a high level of security, demonstrating a 44-60% increase in operational efficiency.
 While this has been happening, an international supply chain digitization platform “MineHub”, is becoming more widely used, and has been shown to reduce the time required for document processing, which accounts for about 30% of total processes.
 While both of these initiatives are effective on their own, further business efficiency gains can be expected when both platforms are connected and data can be linked. Therefore, TradeWaltz and MineHub planned and conducted a “collaboration PoC” on March 23 to see how business efficiency can be improved when customers use both platforms together. The PoC focused on the import trade of copper, which we use every day and which connects us to the electricity we are all familiar with.

■Sumitomo Corporation, one of biggest trader in Japan, cooperates in the demonstration.

 Sumitomo Corporation is engaged in importing copper ore from Chile and other producing countries. We, TradeWaltz and MineHub, have examined to what extent the traditional Sumitomo Corporation’s copper import transactions can be made more efficient through collaboration between the two platforms.
 As a result, when the trade data created in the resource producing country is linked from MineHub to TradeWaltz, confirmed by Sumitomo Corporation, and logistics arrangements are made, the business efficiency can be improved by 60% compared to the time required using conventional methods.

■Presented at ICC’s International Conference

Since trade cannot be conducted by a single country, the importance of interoperability between trade platforms that are being established by each country and industry is becoming increasingly clear.
This demonstration was recognized as a good example, and we were given the opportunity to present our case study at the Digital Trade Conference organized by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) UK on April 7.

<Conference WEB site>
*We were the speakers at WEBINER4.
https://iccwbo.uk/collections/events/products/icc-digital-trade-conference-17-28-04-2022
<Concept movie projected on the day>
https://youtu.be/TV0bSxP8Yl8