Connect with BIMCO using our API

Published: 27 November 2023

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Connect with BIMCO

We offer structured data on 1800 major ports around the world and information at all levels for 120 countries. This information can to a large extent be made available at your own systems! The tool is a simple API – an application programming interface. In our daily life, almost all applications on our smart devices are connected via API. Your photo sharing app is connected to the smartphone camera and media library via API’s and while you do your morning running routine, the health monitoring app is connected to the accelerometer.

The BIMCO Data Exchange Platform is the API we have developed for application of commercially valuable information at external systems. The API taps information directly from BIMCO’s servers and the information is kept up to date by the subject matter experts – in-house as well as approved external data providers.

What’s on the menu

If you are unfamiliar with the technical details of API’s, visualise the API as the waiter in a restaurant. You will be seated at the windows with a perfect garden view – or any other seat of your preference. The waiter will take your order from the menu and pass it to the kitchen, then later come back to you to bring you a well prepared meal. In this example, it is the kitchen which represents the BIMCO servers, your order is the call on the API and your meal is the feedback from the API.

What BIMCO is implementing is a transformation of bulky pieces of text to valuable structured data for you to select from – right off the menu. The meal of the day is the commercially valuable BIMCO Holiday Database which has been integrated by BIMCO members and in connected third-party software. In contrast to your favourite restaurant, everything on the BIMCO menu come at no additional costs to members – and that applies to the connected software as well.

What is in the pipeline

BIMCO’s focus has been on developing and presenting commercially valuable information. The first product on the API was the renowned BIMCO Holidays, since these are typically used as reference by both members and non-members in charter parties. In addition, members can find data sets on the following:

• Port Reception Facilities
• Freight Tax and Double Taxation Agreements
• Scrubber Wash Water Discharge

How to get started

The BIMCO Data Exchange Platform is available to BIMCO members at no additional cost. Use of the data is subject to the BIMCO Data Exchange Platform Terms of Use, which allow members to access and use the information under the same limitations as any restricted information on the BIMCO website.

Application of BIMCO data via the BIMCO Data Exchange Platform will require a small amount of programming. If your company do not have a dedicated IT department, you can contract with external resources to help you get started. The documentation provides all technical details to determine how you can benefit.

To access information on the BIMCO Data Exchange Platform, we require a signed copy of the Terms of Use. We will then provide the required secrets and tokens.

If you have any questions, expectations you want to share, intentions to get started or other enquiries related to the BIMCO Data Exchange Platform, please get in touch with Johan Conrad.