Clive Coke | Jamaica’s trade logistics in a digitalised world

We are living in a state of global interconnectedness, where digitalisation, fuelled by new and emerging technologies and innovation, is having profound impact on how goods move safely and efficiently across international borders and jurisdictions. Customs administration and clearance processes serving global supply chains are working hard to keep pace with disruptive technologies, such as blockchain, the internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning, which are transforming the face of cross-border trade and logistics.

For Jamaica’s customs brokers, who relied heavily on digital platforms to build resilience during the COVID pandemic, scaling up their businesses by making investments in technology for greater efficiencies and customer service, while re-tooling their staff with critical digital skills, is of foremost priority.

This was the focus of a recent training Master Class attended by over 130 local brokers and freight forwarders organised by the customs brokers and freight-forwarders Association of Jamaica (CBFFAJ) with the Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations in India (FFAI), which represents over 6,500 customs brokers and freight- forwarders, control 90 per cent of international logistics trade across the Indian sub-continent. The CBFFAJ’s 200-plus customs brokers also handle in excess of 90 per cent of goods at all of the island’s ports of entry and exit and employ over 5,000 workers.

Shankar Shinde, who heads the FFAI and is the chairman of the International Federation of Customs Brokers Associations (IFCBA), quantified the value of the logistics sector in India at US$250 billion in 2021, accounting for 14.4 per cent of the GDP of the Indian economy with a projected 10 per cent-12 per cent year-on-year growth to reach US$380 billion by 2025.

NATIONAL LOGISTICS POLICY

India has been incredible in adapting and utilising technology to make their customs clearance operations efficient, seamless, collaborative, customer friendly and transparent.

Citing the focus of the World Customs Organization (WCO) on technology as a key driver of trade logistics, Shinde and his Digital Specialist, Mihir Bhadkamkar, took us on India’s journey from the analogue, to a digital domain of sophisticated Indian technology and e-commerce platforms, designed to achieve coherence, collaboration and efficiency and improved standing on the global logistics performance index (LPI). In 2023, India has climbed six places to 38th among 139 countries on the LPI, while Jamaica ranks at 97th in the bottom half of the index.

In our own local experience, where we often jokingly say, “Jamaica is not a real place”, in part to describe a way of life where ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ (Drucker), Jamaica can learn from India’s unfolding success in global trade logistics by instituting a workable National Logistics Policy, if we are to realise our ambitions of building a logistics-centred economy and becoming a global logistics hub of the likes of Panama, Singapore, Dubai or Rotterdam.

However, what is yet to be clearly articulated is a National Logistics Policy to guide Jamaica’s path to these realities. Such a policy would of course require the sincere inputs of all players in the sector, not the least being the customs brokers and freight-forwarders of Jamaica, who work in the trenches daily to sustain the island’s supply chain network.

Our starting context for Jamaica’s logistics sector must be grounded in sound policy and disciplined policy implementation. And, then we might also want to follow the example of the Indians to establish a Logistics Division in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce to take dedicated responsibility for the integrated development of the logistics sector.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

India’s experience has been an eye-opener for the CBFFAJ, which has been supporting member companies through our learning and knowledge management series to embrace digitalisation and to scale up to offer improved services to their clients, while ramping up the digital skills of their work teams.

Digitalisation is the backbone of trade logistics in India, where a standard business process of filing a document in advance, has jumped exponentially from 31 per cent in 2021 to 92 per cent in 2023, and customs data is being managed in the cloud supported by AI-based systems and highly trained cyber security specialists.

Ironically, COVID-19, which brought global trade to a standstill, was also the trigger for a wave of digital innovation, which has propelled India to its best standing to date in logistics performance and as a best practice for Jamaica to study and to apply what works in our Caribbean space.

Shinde and Bhadkamkar pointed out that training for digital transformation has been instrumental in building collaboration and partnerships for sustainable business models in Indian customs brokering and freight forwarding with support of robust Government legislation.

The customs brokers and freight forwarders in Jamaica embrace the mindset for a robust, digital future, where there is better control and visibility of the rudiments of our business - quoting, booking, tracking and delivery of shipments – all transacted online with ease and speed, and in real-time.

World-class digitalisation for Jamaica’s trade logistics is within our grasp. Yet, digitalisation by itself will not work. What is required is greater pace to the ongoing initiatives to spur trade competitiveness and close the trade deficit and effecting targeted policy changes like making customs administration and clearance operations in Jamaica 24/7, to meet the demands of a world that never sleeps.

The master key, in our view, is to deepen stakeholder integration among the trade facilitation agencies to eliminate the bottlenecks, support capacity-building of the customs brokers/ freight forwarders, and deliver greater service outcomes for clients, consumers and the national treasury.

Our colleagues in India have shared valuable insights with us. On the face of the evidence of their meteoric rise in trade logistics in the post-COVID-19 period, Jamaica would do well to learn the lessons from the Indian experience.

– Clive Coke is a licensed customs broker and president of the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association of Jamaica, the largest professional body of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean. Send feedback to clive.coke@worldelogistics.com