USTDA offers $602,450 grant for Southern African supply-chain security

USTDA offers $602,450 grant for Southern African supply-chain security    The U.S. Trade and Development Agency will provide a $602,450 grant to help fund a pilot to enhance supply-chain security for cargo between ports in Southern Africa, United Kingdom and the United States.
   The Southern African pilot is part of the so-called “Smart and Secure Tradelanes” initiative, which follows other tests already underway in tradelanes between the United States and countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America as part of the U.S. Transportation Security Agency’s Operation Safe Commerce program.
   Savi Technology, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., will head a public-private consortium that will carry out the pilot. Savi’s software platform SmartChain and automatic identification technologies will be used in the pilot.
   “South Africa and its neighboring countries represent a strategic commercial location — linking major tradelanes from the Middle and Far East to the West — and this investment will help secure vital shipments, while also introducing new technologies to this growing economic region,” said Mark Weidick, Savi’s vice president and general manager, in a statement.
   The pilot will determine the applicability of new security-oriented business processes and the deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies and related transportation security software along both land-based and ocean trade lanes connecting Walvis Bay, Namibia; Cape Town; United Kingdom and the United States.
   Various public, private and multilateral partners will participate in the project. They include Southern African Port Operations, Namport, the World Customs Organization, the Walvis Bay Corridor Group, the Port of New York and New Jersey, and the Port of Tilbury, U.K.