It is important to eliminate the costs of handling trade documentations to a good degree. The reduction of regulatory supply chain blockages could potentially improve International trade further than the abolition of tariffs, and the total digitization of trade records could increase exports by as many as hundreds of billions each year.

It is not shocking that the driving factors behind the latest developments are players in international trade: shippers, their business clients, banks, insurers, inspections agencies, and governments. They are working together with the aid of technology companies like Trade Reboot to digitalize the paper trail.

Trade Reboot uses blockchain technologies to ensure that any person with access to the database will see the same modified version of all the documentation involved for a given consignment. This technology makes it easy to match movements of goods, details and finance with the ledger containing all necessary documents, e.g., buying order, certificate of origin, bill of lading, etc. Once all the requirements have been fulfilled, an embedded smart contract will initiate complete or partial payment. Such a ledger may also include all manners of other information, e.g., the environmental qualifications of a shipper, not directly relevant to the trade activity. 

Although no one in the industry expects paper-based papers to vanish in the immediate future, there are now justifiable aspirations that foreign trading could eventually reboot in the digital age. For the global shipping industry, it'd be one load less.