ZIM and Alibaba.com announced that they have entered into a broad strategic cooperation agreement for the direct purchase of sea freight, improving logistic services to Alibaba.com sellers. Under the agreement, ZIM provides sea freight and services through a direct interface with Alibaba.com’s logistics platform.

The cooperation, in force since earlier this year, has effectively improved the visualisation process of Alibaba.com’s logistics platform and has proven beneficial for Alibaba.com stakeholders. The carriers extensive network of lines provides stable, high-efficiency and visible global logistics delivery services for Alibaba.com sellers, along with high-level customer service, product support and system optimization. Accordingly, ZIM and Alibaba.com are evaluating options to expand their cooperation.

Eli Glickman, ZIM President & CEO: “We are proud of this first cooperation with Alibaba.com, which is part and parcel of our innovative strategic vision. We see it as a great opportunity and a mutually beneficial arrangement leading to top-level customer service. It’s an important step for ZIM, expanding digital services for e-commerce customers as well as small and medium enterprises.”

Saar Dotan, ZIM EVP Countries & Business Development: “Alibaba.com is one of the leading e-commerce portals in the world. As a customer-centric company with advanced digital solutions, we can contribute to the enhancement and efficiency of logistic services to Alibaba.com customers.”

Kuo Zhang, General Manager of Alibaba.com: “As the world’s largest cross-border e-commerce B2B platform, Alibaba.com aims to build a global logistics network jointly with ZIM and other ecological partners and reshape global logistics industry standards. The strategic cooperation between ZIM and Alibaba.com will provide customers with stable, efficient and visible cross-border supply chain solutions, and provide strong support for the explosive growth of the global digital trade.”

Major global container carriers CMA CGM and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company  today announced they are now integrated onto TradeLens, helping ensure a more fully integrated, timely and consistent view of logistics data for their containerized freight around the world. The digital platform is run on IBM Hybrid Cloud and IBM Blockchain, and was jointly developed by IBM and A.P. Moller – Maersk.

These two global shipping leaders, together with Maersk, will act as platform foundation carriers with a role in expanding the ecosystem and platform operations, including playing key roles as validators on the blockchain network.

The addition of these two major global shipping leaders marks a crucial milestone for the industry, which until now has too often relied on paper-based trade and manual document handling that lead to increased costs and reduced business continuity. Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM and IBM, together with the expanding TradeLens network of terminals, customs authorities and 3PL and intermodal providers, are ushering in a transformation designed to benefit all network participants by making it easier to quickly and more reliably share documents and shipping data and digitally collaborate.

“Digitization is a cornerstone of the CMA CGM Group’s strategy aimed at providing an end-to-end solution tailored to our customers’ needs. An industry-wide collaboration like this is truly unprecedented. Only by working together and agreeing to a shared set of standards and goals are we able to enact the digital transformation that is now touching nearly every part of the global shipping industry,” said Marc Bourdon, CMA CGM Senior Vice President, Commercial Agencies Network.

This completes a digital transformation that has taken more than a year, requiring considerable investment in new API capabilities. An important milestone in the process was a 15-customer pilot involving more than 3,000 unique consignments, 100,000 events and 6,000 containers to ensure the TradeLens platform distributes and shares shipment data across various supply chains with speed and accuracy.

TradeLens members use the platform to connect within the ecosystem and share information needed for their shipments based on permissions, without sharing sensitive data. TradeLens makes it possible to access data from the source in near real-time, boosts the quality of information, provides a comprehensive view of data as cargo moves around the world, and helps create a more timely, secured record of transactions. Launched in 2018, the TradeLens ecosystem now includes more than 175 organizations – extending to more than 10 ocean carriers and encompassing data from more than 600 ports and terminals. Already it has tracked 30 million container shipments, 1.5 billion events and roughly 13 million published documents.

For customers, the addition of CMA CGM and MSC in production can result in fewer data gaps as they do business with multiple carriers. Additionally, other members such as ports, terminals, authorities and intermodal providers can benefit from the ability to use permissioned data sharing to provide a comprehensive view of freight moving around the world. Terminal operators who use TradeLens to improve yard planning will now also be able to access far more comprehensive data for processing multi-carrier vessels.

“TradeLens is an important initiative in the digitalization of global shipping and logistics, with the potential to help carriers and their customers to increase transparency and reduce errors and delays, all at a crucial time when the industry is re-thinking and improving the resiliency of supply chains,” said Andre Simha, Global Chief Digital & Information Officer, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company. “By completing the integration, we can now begin showing our customers and business partners how they can create and see value from the platform, and we hope that many of them will join it, creating an even larger and more beneficial ecosystem.”

Now that they are live on the platform, MSC and CMA CGM are promoting TradeLens capabilities and membership to their clients and business partners across all major geographies.

As TradeLens continuously scales, other recent additions of new ports and terminals include the Commercial Port of Vladivostock, DP World, PT Salam Pacific Indonesia Lines, Portbase, QTerminals and Hamad Port, SSA Marine’s Manzanillo International Terminal – Panama, Shipwaves, South Asia Gateway Terminals and Yilport Holding.

Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp has cooperated with TAIWAN FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL PTE. LTD. and Malaysian investors to set up a joint venture depot company named Jambatan Merah Formosa Depot Sdn. Bhd at Port Klang, Malaysia. The opening ceremony was held on October 1st, 2020. The new company will provide inland empty container depot and container maintenance and repair services.

Malaysia is the one of largest economies in ASEAN. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report released in June, despite Malaysia’s GDP is projected to contract by 3.8% this year due to COVID-19, however, its GDP growth is expected to resume pre-COVID-19 growth levels in 2021 at 6.3%. The steady economic growth in the country will accelerate local industrial development and further stimulate local demand.

The harbor business is one of the most important sectors for development in Malaysia. Port Klang, the largest port in Malaysia, is also a main calling port of Yang Ming. In light of this, Yang Ming has set up wholly-owned subsidiaries in the country to position itself in the Malaysian transport and logistics market. The setup of Jambatan Merah Formosa Depot Sdn. Bhd, coupled with Yang Ming’s flexible service deployment and cooperative partners’ strengths, will enable the company to further integrate midstream and downstream businesses, and enjoy the advantage of cost reduction and profitability increase.

In keeping with the rapid growth of Southeast Asian market and The government’s “New Southbound Policy”, Yang Ming set up a joint venture depot company named PT. FORMOSA SEJATI LOGISTICS in Surabaya, Indonesia in 2018, and continued to extend its investment territory in Southeast Asia by establishing Jambatan Merah Formosa Depot Sdn. Bhd this year. Looking into the future, Yang Ming will continue to look for cross-sector collaboration opportunities to enhance its competitiveness and service quality in the Southeast Asia market.