UNUnited Nations Economic Commission for Europe

Press Release

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Building Digital Bridges: UN Launches the United Nations Electronic Trade Documents (UNeDocs) Project

Geneva, 29 June 2001

The United Nations, through its Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), has just launched the United Nations electronic trade Documents (UNeDocs) project. The project is supported by other UN regional commissions, the UK Simpler Trade Procedures Board (SITPRO), the Swiss Secrétariat d’Etat à l’économie and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. The implementation of the project will start in the United Kingdom.

"In the past, thanks to our standards for trade documents, UNECE was able to facilitate international trade significantly," says Jean Kubler of the UNECE Trade Division. "Now we are moving one step further. By providing electronic trade documents, we will allow traders to exchange their documents by using modern communication technologies. By integrating these paper documents into the new XML and Internet based communication systems, we can bring enormous benefits to world trade in terms of narrowing the digital divide, reducing costs and increasing speed and security."

In the 1960s, UNECE developed tools for reducing, simplifying and standardizing international trade documents, which became a United Nations Recommendation and international standard, ISO 6422 – United Nations Layout Key (UNLK), the standard form for paper documents which is the fundamental standard for today’s trade documents. In the 1980s, UNECE developed the international standard ISO 7372 – United Nations Trade Data Elements Directory (UNTDED), which facilitated the electronic data interchange for administration, commerce and transport.

UNeDocs aims to facilitate the use of documents in international trade by providing default forms for trade documents that can be used both on paper and with computerized systems. Today, in the computer era, paper-based trade documents are still the predominant way by which traders exchange their information along the supply chain. However, the handling of this paper documentation increases costs in international trade. In addition, paper as a physical medium cannot be integrated into the Information and Communication Systems that support today’s modern trade.

UNeDocs specifically targets to incorporate the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), developing countries, and countries in transition to a market economy, and allows them to link to the international supply chain using either paper or the Internet. UNECE will provide a simple and low cost system for electronic trade documents that will help these countries to participate in electronic trade.

 

For further details, please contact the UNeDocs project officers or consult the UNeDocs web site under www.UNeDocs.org

Mr. Jean Kubler
Trade Division
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Palais des Nations, office 446
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Tel: (+41 22) 917 2774
Fax: (+41 22) 917 0037
E-mail: [email protected]

Mr. Markus Pikart
Trade Division
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Palais des Nations, office 425
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Tel: (+41 22) 917 2016
Fax: (+41 22) 917 0037
E-mail: [email protected]

Ref:  ECE/TRADE/01/12