Scaling digital trade between the UK and Japan: what the latest evidence means for businesses
Digital trade is transforming how businesses move goods, services and information across borders. Yet while the technology exists to streamline global trade, widespread adoption remains a challenge.
New insights emerging from work on the UK-Japan digital trade corridor show that the future of trade is not just about developing digital tools – it is about creating systems that businesses can trust, adopt and scale.
At Teesside University, we are proud to play a role in this evolving landscape through our work on the Digital Trade Testbed (DTT), bringing together academia, industry and policy partners to explore how digital innovation can support more efficient international trade.
The UK-Japan corridor work, developed alongside partners including ICC United Kingdom and the International Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation (iC4DTI), highlights the practical opportunities – and challenges – involved in digitising trade processes between two major global economies. The findings reinforce an important message: the technology itself is no longer the primary barrier.
Instead, successful digital trade depends on interoperability between systems, common standards, regulatory alignment and ensuring businesses of all sizes can confidently adopt new approaches.
This matters particularly for SMEs. Traditional international trade processes often involve fragmented systems, manual documentation and administrative complexity that can create barriers to market entry. Digitalisation has the potential to simplify these processes, improve transparency and reduce costs – but only if solutions work effectively across different organisations, platforms and jurisdictions.
The UK-Japan pilots explored several real-world use cases, from improving cross-platform data exchange to supporting digital trade finance and more seamless export workflows. Collectively, they demonstrate how collaboration across business, government and research organisations can help move digital trade from concept to practical implementation.
For Teesside University, this work aligns closely with our commitment to applied research, business innovation and supporting economic growth through collaboration.
By contributing expertise and evidence into initiatives such as the DTT, we are helping shape conversations around the future of international commerce while ensuring research remains grounded in real-world business needs.
The lessons from the UK–Japan corridor also point towards the next phase of digital trade development. Adoption cannot be driven by technology alone. Organisations need clear onboarding pathways, workforce capability, trusted governance frameworks and confidence that digital systems will deliver tangible operational value.
This is where universities, industry networks and policy stakeholders all have an important role to play. As global trade becomes increasingly digital, collaboration between sectors will be essential to ensuring innovation translates into meaningful economic impact.
The UK-Japan corridor demonstrates what can be achieved when partners work together to test, refine and scale digital trade solutions. We look forward to continuing to contribute to this agenda – helping businesses navigate emerging trade opportunities and supporting the development of more connected, efficient and resilient global trading systems.