APR 2019 FEATURE:

In line with our national vision to become a smart nation, the Networked Trade Platform (NTP) was officially launched by Mr Heng Swee Keat, currently Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, on 26 September 2018.

First mentioned in Mr Heng’s 2016 Budget speech, the NTP went live in December 2017 and has garnered close to 800 company users from various industries including wholesale trade and logistics as of last year.

The one-stop trade and logistics ecosystem enables the digitalisation of paper trail, helps boost competitiveness with more accurate data analysis and offers opportunities to third-party service providers.

The NTP consolidates four government certification services required for trading in and out of Singapore. It will eventually replace the Government’s existing TradeXchange and TradeNet platforms to go beyond their current offerings including:

• One-stop trade information management system linked to other platforms
• Next-generation platform offering a wide range of trade-related services
• Open innovation platform allowing development of insights & new services with cross-industry data
• Document hub for digitisation at source that enables reuse of data to cut costs and streamline processes

Mr Heng noted that a single trade today can involve 30-40 documents, and requiring 60-70% of the information to be manually reentered at least once. While various digital solutions have sprung up around the world to address such issues, these were either purely regulatory or purely commercial. By stitching disparate standalone systems, or digital islands, together, and bridge the Government agencies and the business community, the potential value to the economy is significant and transformational. The government had sensed more can be done to enhance existing systems.

As a Government-owned and operated platform, the NTP is trusted, open to all service providers and not-for-profit. Shippers can easily store physical documents in digital formats, streamline data and exchange the digital documents with partners, all within the same space and with peace of mind. the NTP also gives traders access to third-party service providers whose offerings include trade news, logistics planning and execution logistics, financing, customs declarations and payments reconciliation. Companies can re-use and share data from permit declaration with these services, speeding up the coordination process.

As an illustration of how NTP can help boost competitiveness, Mr Heng cited an example of a container shipment between Singapore and Shanghai. The NTP user and stakeholders are able to use the NTP to transmit trusted and accurate data, from source, whether it’s the shipping line, bank or trucker, to the user’s business partners, according to its directions. In this scenario, the NTP user can use this tool to plan better and cut wastage and lags, and become more competitive.

Creating an extensive platform such as this has been an arduous task which involved consultations with various key stakeholders in the sectors, ranging from manufacturing to logistics, shipping to finance as well as involving numerous regulatory and legal jurisdictions.

As an open digital platform, NTP works with the industry to bring onboard Value-Added Services to serve traders’ needs and is actively on-boarding more services. A list of the service providers are available on its website.

Calling NTPʼs blend of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to government (B2G) services and inclusion of third party service providers on its open platform ‘’innovations’’, Mr Heng said they will allow new business models and value creation to take place and noted that TradeNet was ground breaking in its day for becoming the world’s first National Single Window system when it was launched in 1989.

The NTP has already received international recognition and was conferred the best Smart City Project under the Economic Development category of the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) 2016 Smart City/Asia Pacific Awards (SCAPA) and is also a winner in the e-business category of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes 2017.

The NTP is developed by Singapore Customs and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech), with the Whole-of-Government support from ministries and agencies including the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Transport, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, Economic Development Board, Enterprise Singapore, Info-communications Media Development Authority, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore.

Catering to different needs, firms have an option to use limited services on the NTP for free or pay a monthly S$40 fee. For more information, visit https://www.ntp.gov.sg

Sources:

• https://www.mof.gov.sg/Newsroom/Speeches/speech-by-mr-heng-swee-keat-minister-for-finance-at-the-official-launch-of-ntp-26-september-2018-at-orchard-hotel-singapore
• https://www.customs.gov.sg/-/media/cus/files/media-releases/2018/270918-fact-sheet—networked-trade-platform.pdf
• https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/singapores-new-digital-trade-platform-can-help-build-cross-border-linkages

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