SGX-backed CIC launches initiative under Digital Silk Road to boost China-Asean trade

COMMODITIES Intelligence Centre (CIC), a global trading platform for physical commodities, and China-based ZALL Smart Commerce Group have jointly launched an initiative under the Digital Silk Road leveraging ZALL's business-to-business trading ecosystem in China and South-east Asia and CIC's real-time global trade data capabilities.

This will enable digital connectivity across every stage of the supply chain from sourcing to last-mile delivery and fulfilment across borders, said Peter Yu, chief executive officer of CIC, in an interview with The Business Times.

"CIC will partner ZALL's latest global digital trading platform Zallgo to provide Singapore businesses, especially SMEs, new opportunities, with our combined global B2B trading ecosystem, end-to-end supply chain networks and resources in Asia. That would enable businesses to reap the benefits of the global digital trade economy with enhanced digital connectivity, in turn boosting trade across the Asia-Pacific region on the back of the RCEP," he said.

Zallgo was officially launched during the 2020 Global Digital Trade Conference held in Wuhan last month. A total of 300 merchants signed 252 agreements onsite through ZALL's digital platform, amounting to a total of S$56.3 billion of cooperation agreements.

The company is a joint venture between ZALL Smart Commerce Group, Singapore Exchange (SGX) and Global eTrade Services (GeTS). It is also Singapore's first global physical commodities business-to-business e-trade platform powered by blockchain.

Notably, the platform saw a surge in online transactions with over 4,000 customers searching for trading opportunities on a daily basis. CIC has since achieved a gross merchandise volume of US$13.2 billion, with over 5,200 registered users covering markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and China, among other countries in Asia.

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Since the start of the year, CIC's platform has reported more than 20 per cent increase in customers joining, compared to the same period last year.

This initiative sits under the Digital Silk Road, which is a component of China's Belt and Road Initiative that aims to not only promote the development of the digital service sector, such as cross-border e-commerce, smart cities, telemedicine, and Internet finance, but also accelerate technological progress, including computing, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and quantum computing across regions such as China, South-east Asia, Central Asia, Russia and Europe.

Separately, CIC is one of six commercial partners to be part of the recently formed Blockchain for Trade & Connectivity (BTC) Network, an initiative by the Singapore University of Social Sciences and Enterprise Singapore, supported by the National Research Foundation to develop a risk-assessment framework for small and medium-sized enterprises to assess how blockchain can support their business needs.

The BTC Network was officially launched at the sidelines of SWITCH 2020. The other five commercial partners are Ascent Solutions, blockchain-based Service Network, GeTS, Trames and VeChain Technology.

Said Mr Yu: "As digital trade becomes the new engine for global economic growth, CIC will expand its blockchain applications through data writing, distributed accounting and smart contracts to help SMEs achieve greater coordination and transparency of their business flow, logistics flow and cashflow in an integrated manner across their supply chains."