Japan Govt OKs Bill for Maritime Trade Document Digitization

Tokyo, Oct. 23 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government Friday approved a bill to revise the Commercial Code to allow bills of lading, needed for maritime trade, to be exchanged electronically.

As other maritime states, including Britain, France and Singapore, are developing similar legislation, Japan aims to digitize trade-related procedures to maintain its competitiveness. The government hopes that the bill will be enacted during the current session of the Diet, the country's parliament, ending in December and implement it in fiscal 2027.

Bills of lading represent a claim to the delivery of cargo. Shipping companies issue the bills to sellers upon receiving cargo, and the sellers then send buyers the bills. The buyers receive the cargo from shipping companies in exchange for the documents.

As the current Commercial Code assumes only paper documents, buyers often find themselves unable to collect cargo, as faster maritime transport has led to situations in which the cargo arrives earlier than the bills of lading.

Following the revision, electronic bills of lading would have the same legal effect as paper bills. The revision would also allow warehouse receipts and multimodal transport bills of lading to be issued electronically.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]