Shanghai advances notary services for shipping sector

Shanghai is stepping up efforts to set a global benchmark for notary services tailored to the shipping sector, aiming to drive growth and reinforce its status as an international shipping hub.

As part of its commitment to high-quality development, the city's notary sector has issued the Notary Service Guide for Shipping Enterprises and the Implementation Plan for Advancing Notary Services in the Shipping Industry. These initiatives aim to provide high-quality notary services for the shipping sector and establish a comprehensive preventive legal service system covering all aspects and stages of the shipping industry.

Against the backdrop of evolving global shipping dynamics, Shanghai is accelerating its transformation into a global shipping hub with advanced resource allocation capabilities. By continuously upgrading its notary services for the shipping industry, the city offers robust protection for domestic and international enterprises, enhances transaction efficiency, and reduces compliance costs, providing legal support for the growth of the maritime sector.

Focusing on the core needs of shipping enterprises, Shanghai's notary sector has adopted targeted measures to address emerging industry-specific challenges. As a result of specialized research conducted by the Notary Work Management Division of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Justice and the Shanghai Notary Association in 2025, the notary service guide was issued at the end of the year. This guide aims to provide comprehensive, professional, and globally aligned notary services for the shipping industry.

Building on this, the implementation plan represents a strategic step for Shanghai‘s notary sector to align with world-class standards. It extends service functions from post-event certification to pre-transaction risk prevention, transaction guarantees and post-transaction dispute resolution, better catering to the long-chain, cross-regional and high-risk characteristics of the shipping sector.

Shanghai's notary sector has promoted the effective implementation of the plan by refining service measures to address the specific needs of enterprises expanding overseas.

Efforts include expanding service coverage by incorporating notarization into all stages of shipping operations, leveraging technologies, such as remote verification and blockchain-based evidence systems, to alleviate cross-border notarization bottlenecks, and enhancing collaboration with customs, ports, maritime authorities, and arbitration institutions to unify standards and share resources.

In addition, the city’s notary sector has worked to ensure effective service delivery by promoting exemplary cases and refining practical measures to create replicable and scalable models of notary services for the shipping industry.

To provide stronger legal safeguards and facilitate cross-border maritime transactions through its efficient services, Shanghai’s notary sector will focus on five key priorities tailored to the practical needs of the shipping industry.

It will strengthen its talent pool through expert guidance and case studies to enhance the professional capabilities of notaries, while innovating service models by developing integrated, one-stop "green channel" services.

Meanwhile, it will optimize notary services to facilitate cross-border transactions, covering the processes of shipbuilding, registration and transactions, by providing integrated services such as notarization of ownership rights and evidence preservation, so as to ensure the security of transaction funds. 

The sector will also enhance rights protection by establishing emergency response teams for swift maritime evidence notarization and expand service scenarios by building a coordinated Yangtze River Delta shipping notarization mechanism and exploring new services, such as electronic bills of lading and digital maritime records, to support the digital and low-carbon transformation of the industry.

Looking ahead, Shanghai's notary sector will continue to align with the development needs of the maritime industry by refining a foreign-related maritime notarization system with Chinese characteristics and Shanghai-specific advantages. It aims to help shipping enterprises navigate legal challenges in cross-border transactions and maritime disputes, showcasing Shanghai's expertise through professional notary services. This effort will provide stronger legal support for the nation's goal of building itself into a maritime power.