Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) has partnered with supply chain visibility platform project44 to enhance supply chain visibility and help address the global trade finance gap.

The partnership will see GSBN's data utility infrastructure connect with project44's supply chain visibility data to foster collaboration between all stakeholders across the supply chain.

The independent, not-for-profit technology consortium building a blockchain-enabled operating system designed to redefine global trade, noted that this builds on GSBN's strategy to partner with application builders and data providers to support the development of new industry applications on its platform.

Both project44 and GSBN will also join forces with other consortium members to create a new data bundle which will combine both bill of lading and supply chain visibility data.

In its announcement, GSBN said this will benefit Free Trade Zones, as well as financial institutions by breaking down data siloes to help close the growing multi-trillion-dollar global trade finance gap.

"The addition of project44's data is highly complementary to both our platform and our members. We look forward to leveraging this partnership together with our ecosystem to unlock new value for our members, facilitate collaboration across the supply chain industry, enable better insights and support the development of new applications to address the industry's most pressing challenges," said Bertrand Chen, chief executive at GSBN.

Benn Bekic, chief development officer at project44 noted the shared goal between the two firms of promoting supply chain visibility.

"GSBN is a fellow pioneer in the digitisation of global supply chains with a growing footprint spanning from Asia to Latin America and we are thrilled to be collaborating more closely with the consortium’s members," Bekic said.

"GSBN and project44 share an important goal of making supply chains work through innovative and foundational technology. Together we will deliver exceptional value to all members of the supply chain ecosystem globally," he added.

Following project44's service expansion in China last year which brought real-time shipment tracking services to the market, its partnership with GSBN is a further step of the company toward its vision for global end-to-end visibility across all modes of transportation.

Meanwhile, the latest announcement also follows GSBN's recent announcement that an electronic bill of lading application, built using GSBN's Application Programming Interface (API), obtained approval by the International Group of P&I Clubs.