France’s Main Trade Seaport Joins Blockchain Pilot for Freight Logistics: Report

The main trade seaport of France, Marseille Fos Port, will participate in a blockchain pilot for freight logistics in June 2019, local industry news outlet PortSEurope reports on March 6.

The project aims to use blockchain technology for supply chain logistics and intermodal freight forwarding on the Mediterranean-Rhône-Saône axis (MeRS) transport corridor.

According to the report, the blockchain initiative is supported French authority, the Interministerial Delegation for the development of the port and logistics for MeRS. The project is also reportedly backed and supported financially by the French public sector financial institution Caisse des Dépôts, navigation authority Voies navigables de France and electricity generation firm the Compagnie National Rhone.

The initiative intends to conduct a pilot to examine blockchain’s capability to boost the efficiency of data management on the digital transport chain. Specifically, the pilot is aiming to bring increased security to data sharing directly between the parties involved in port logistics.

The pilot is reportedly developed by three firms focused on logistics, supply chain and blockchain technology, namely Marseille Gyptis International, BuyCo and KeeeX.

Marseille Fos Port, or Grand Port Maritime de Marseille, is known as the second largest Mediterranean port and the fourth largest port in Europe.

The French port has not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment by press time.

Recently, Russian shipping transport firm Infotech Baltika announced the development of a blockchain-enabled system for handling port operations.

Also in Russia, the Ministry of Transport is reportedly planning to trial blockchain shipping solution TradeLens, which was developed by IBM and Maersk.