Thailand’s Ministry of Commerce is exploring the option of using blockchain technology for its agriculture, finance and intellectual properties sector, according to The Bangkok Post.
Pimchanok Vonkorpon, an official from Thai Trade Policy and Strategy Office (TPSO), said that an effort is being to conduct the feasibility of blockchain being employed to find out if a decentralized solution is capable of boosting credibility and efficiency of the Thailand industry’s performance, especially in the small-scale business sector and agriculture.
This is not the first time the current government has eyed blockchain to bring improvement to the current system. The Thai finance industry has already shown interest in exploring blockchain in the past. The Thai Bond Market Association has already formed a new service for issuance of bond certificates with faster speeds. Adopting a decentralized solution will help reduce the bond issuance to 3-4 days, significantly reduced from current time which can take up to two weeks.
Kasikornbank, Thailand’s fourth-largest bank has also partnered with Visa’s B2B Connect to facilitate international payments to its customers. Using blockchain, the operational speed will improve and it will contribute to blockchain’s advanced secure ecology too.
Vonkorpon also said that the blockchain feasibility studies will be using smart contracts and security for digital IDs, IP registration and management and even security. TPSO is also keen on developing sandboxes to use blockchain for agriculture, especially rice, its major export.
A meeting with farmers revealed to the ministry that agriculture exports in Thailand are a procedure that lasts up to 20 days that involves seven different government agencies. With blockchain and smart contracts, much of the paperwork can be done automatically and bring down the average export time to three days.
This is not the first time blockchain has been considered for food chain supply internationally. IBM has already has launched Food Trust, an effort that has seen French Carrefour and US’s Walmart join up.
Food Trust tracks end-to-end supply of agricultural goods, from the farmer to the stores’ shelves. Blockchain’s excellent ledger system also makes it easier to trace products in case of customer complaints or product recall. The feasibility study is the largest ever done in the Asian country and the British Embassy is helping in it too.
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