- Cigamatoi, the second AI TV-Ad Bounty winner, highlighted that IOTA was referenced in the OECD’s Trade Policy Paper.
- IOTA’s TLIP reduces paperwork, speeds up customs and border processing, and increases transparency across global trade corridors.
The IOTA Foundation has been recognized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for its role in digital trade innovation.
In the OECD’s September report, “The Digitalization of Trade Documents and Processes”, IOTA was highlighted as a key private-sector contributor advancing the global shift toward paperless trade.
The report outlines how the digitalization of trade documentation, such as bills of lading, certificates of origin, and customs declarations, is accelerating across multiple industries. However, it also notes that adoption remains uneven, especially in maritime transport, where the use of electronic trade documents still lags behind the air transport sector.
In this context, the OECD cites IOTA’s Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP) as an initiative that helps bridge that gap. The report states:
The IOTA Foundation, TradeMark Africa, the World Economic Forum, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the Institute of Export and International Trade, and the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation signed a Collaboration Agreement in February 2024, setting up the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline. TLIP aims to enable data to be transmitted directly from its source with no third-party involvement and shared seamlessly, securely, and at little to no cost.
TLIP’s Role in Digital Trade
The Trade Logistics Information Pipeline is a global trade infrastructure initiative co-founded by the IOTA Foundation, the World Economic Forum, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, TradeMark Africa, the Institute of Export and International Trade, and the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation.
Built on IOTA’s distributed ledger technology, TLIP connects all parts of the trade journey —from the people who make the goods to those who ship, inspect, and buy them. It makes it possible to share documents instantly and securely, ensuring that everyone can trust the data they see.
What sets TLIP apart is its strong emphasis on data sovereignty: each organization maintains full control over its own databases, yet can seamlessly interact with others through TLIP’s APIs and distributed ledger backbone.
As we featured in a news piece, the system adheres to leading international standards, including W3C decentralized identity (DID) and verifiable credential frameworks, data models such as GS1 EPCIS 2.0 and UN/CEFACT vocabularies, and legal frameworks like the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR).
Early pilot programs have already demonstrated remarkable results. As mentioned in a CNF report, data from Kenya show that TLIP has helped traders cut transaction costs by up to 80%, dramatically improving efficiency and reducing administrative overhead. Cross-border operations using TLIP have also achieved a 96% improvement in transaction effectiveness.
This showcases the platform’s potential to change how goods and data move across international supply chains.
The OECD report also situates TLIP within a wider international trend. It highlights several new bilateral and multilateral partnerships that are digitizing trade processes, such as the EU-Singapore Digital Partnership that was signed in February 2023 and the EU–Japan Digital Trade Principles (June 2023).
Significant progress has also been made in international forums like the G7 and G20. Under the United Kingdom’s 2021 presidency, the G7 adopted the Digital Trade Principles, which include a section on “digital trading systems” emphasizing the importance of digital tools in facilitating trade throughout entire supply chains.
