How Blockchain Can Help Solve China's Logistical Inefficiencies

According to MIT, China is the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer.

China is the most populous nation in the world, and its infrastructure is currently not scaled to handle its logistics needs.

"Two examples of the infrastructure that has helped make China a mighty trading power can be found on the outskirts of Shanghai: Yangshan, the world's busiest container port, and Pudong airport, the world's third-biggest handler of air cargo. Radiating out across the country are more than 100,000km of expressways and a comparable length of railways. Given all this new infrastructure, you might expect China to have a world-class logistics industry, too. It does not."

Food Logistics observes that 17% of U.S. agricultural exports wind up in China.

The South China Morning Post reports that Singapore-based logistics firm GLP is investing in multi-modal transportation solutions, cold chain logistics, and smart trucking.

Though China's relationship with cryptocurrency is fraught, its tech leaders are embracing crypto's underlying technology, blockchain.

China Central Television, China's primary state-run broadcaster, recently declared that blockchain's economic value is "10 times more than that of the internet."

A blockchain ledger could, for example, help build more efficient contracts and agreements in a highly fragmented supply chain or provide a custody record for food safety officials to check.

Blockchain startups such as Fr8 Network, a blockchain-based logistics platform for building shared single-truth records among supply chain participants, could be vital to advancing China's logistics industry.

China didn't become the economic powerhouse they are today by sleeping on solutions for improving productivity, and that principle extends to the logistics industry.