Uganda’s Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID) signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on August 23, 2023  with the Technology Associates & CargoX consortium (TA-CargoX). The MoU aims to establish TradeXchange, a national trade facilitation platform.

PACEID’s objective with this strategic technology partnership is to support exporters, resolve trade bottlenecks, easily comply with global trade standards and buttress Uganda’s ambitious goal of doubling its exports by 2026.

Uganda TradeXchange 

The new platform will be built on CargoX’s Blockchain Document Transfer (BDT) solution for simple, efficient and secure global electronic trade document transfer.

The TradeXchange will be a blockchain-based collaboration platform that streamlines processes and enhances information flow among farmers, producers, traders and government bodies. It helps government offer more efficient regulation on accreditation, quality and produce traceability in a secure manner, promoting trust between participants, preventing fraud, and minimising disputes. It will unify Uganda’s trade practices with global standards, boosting production, packaging, quality control and eventually multiplying export growth.

According to Igor Jakomin, Deputy CEO, CargoX “the CargoX Platform for Blockchain Document Transfer (BDT) is used by more than 115,000 companies worldwide, and has processed more than 5,3+ million electronic trade documents to date, without noticeable downtimes or operation failures.”

In pursuit of international trade standards compliance, the TA-CargoX solution actively collaborates and aligns with the world’s leading trade industry bodies and organisations, such as ICC, UNCITRAL MLETR, ITFA, DCSA, UN /CEFACT, WCO, IRU, FIATA, WEF, DTLF-EU and IGP&I. 

• “We are pleased to work with CargoX who already do work in COMESA and many other parts of the world, to bring fresh thinking on how to gather, build and utilize data for our Exports from Uganda. Our target of USD6bn in five years would be difficult to attain without more reining our hard infrastructure as well as the soft one in digital performance” Odrek Rwabwogo, Chairman of PACEID.
• “As PACEID expands Uganda’s market reach, enhances value addition, and doubles export revenue, the TA-CargoX Consortium will provide a robust, globally compliant digital trade platform as the surest means to integrate Uganda into the global trade network. This platform shall automate the import and export value chain, provide visibility in the trade supply chain, ensuring transparency, traceability, authenticity, and reliability in trade processes, as well as save cost directly for all participants,” – Girisch Nair, Chairman of Technology Associates.
• “We will provide our global blockchain document transfer layer to enable the most secure electronic document exchange. With proven experience where more than 110,000 companies worldwide, use CargoX BDT to process more than 4,8+ million electronic documents to date, we are confident that this will position Uganda at the vanguard of global trading nations, demonstrating their commitment to technological innovation and business transparency. Uganda, renowned for its high-quality goods, will now set a precedent in digital trade processes for other countries to emulate.” Igor Jakomin, Deputy CEO, CargoX.

CargoX BDT is accepted and proven customs technology

The Ugandan TradeXchange platform approach is similar to the integration of the CargoX Platform in the Egyptian international trade facilitation platform NAFEZA, built by MTS, for the purpose of customs import trade processing. This helped the Egyptian government shorten cargo release times from 29 days to under 9 days, reduce import compliance cost from more than 600 USD to under 165 USD, and improve efficiency in cargo import risk assessment, tax revenue collection, and overall cargo flow transparency.