While it is rational that countries focus on the development of intra-national systems first (national or port single windows), these systems - including related laws and regulations - should be designed with cross-border exchange of electronic data and documents in mind. In fact, as the cost of developing a cross-border enabled system is not expected to be significantly higher than that of a paperless trade system designed for intra-national exchange of data and documents, less developed countries with no legacy systems may take the opportunity to leapfrog from manual systems to world-leading paperless systems. Innovations such as blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT),' as well as progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence (Al), and the development of the internet of things (loT) have enormous potential in making international supply chains more transparent and efficient.