Introduction
- The provisional agenda for the fifty-third session of the Meeting of
Experts on Data Elements and Automatic Data Interchange (GE.1) has been
established in accordance with decisions taken by the Working Party on
Facilitation of International Trade Procedures at its forty-second session in
September 1995.
- The provisional timetable presented below has been agreed upon by the
Bureau of the Working Party on Facilitation of International Trade Procedures
for its forty-third session and for the sessions of its Meetings of Experts.
It is expected that the experts of GE.1 and GE.2 will have a joint session on
legal issues in the morning of 21 March 1996.
a.m. p.m.
Monday 18 March 1996 Informal Meeting GE.1
Tuesday 19 March 1996 GE.1 GE.1
Wednesday 20 March 1996 GE.2 GE.2
Thursday 21 March 1996 GE.1/GE.2 Informal Meeting
Friday 22 March 1996 WP.4 WP.4
- Informal meetings of delegations will take place the Monday, 18 March
starting at 10:00 and continuing until 13:00 and the Thursday, 21 March
starting at 15:00 and continuing until 18:00. The meeting on 18 March will
present the interim reports from the three ad hoc groups established at the
September 1995 session to develop the plans and terms of reference necessary
for implementation of the Re-engineering proposal approved at the September
1995 WP.4 meeting. The meeting on 21 March will be to debate and discuss these
same documents. In the context of trade facilitation work, the word
"delegations" refers not only to countries but also to international
organizations regularly represented at meetings.
Item 1 - Adoption of the agenda
- In accordance with the Commission's Rules of Procedures, the first item on
the provisional agenda (document TRADE/WP.4/GE.1/102/Rev.1) is the adoption of
the agenda.
Item 2 - Election of Officers
- In accordance with the Commission's Rules of Procedures and established
practice, the Meeting is expected to elect a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman for
the year 1996. In 1995, Mr. R. Walker (United Kingdom) was elected as Chairman
and Mr. C. Chiaramonti (France) was elected as Vice Chairman of the Meeting of
Experts.
Item 3 - Technical issues and reports from UN/EDIFACT standing
technical groups
- TRADE/WP.4/R.1185 contains the executive summary report prepared by the
Chairman of the Syntax Development Group (SDG). This document is for discussion
and contains recommendations for approval.
- The documents TRADE/WP.4/R.1157,
TRADE/WP.4/R.1157/Add.1,
TRADE/WP.4/R.1157/Add.2,
and TRADE/WP.4/R.1157/Add.3 contain final drafts of
Parts 1, 2, 3 and 8 of the revised UN/EDIFACT syntax (9735) and were first
submitted at the September 1995 session for review and discussion. They are now
for approval.
- The SDG is submitting the CONTRL message for Version 3 of the ISO 9735
EDIFACT syntax (document TRADE/WP.4/R.1186),
for approval as Status 2. The
message was approved for Status 1 in September 1993. Due to an error in the
originally published cover page, a corrigendum has also been issued
(TRADE/WP.4/R.1186/Corr.1).
- As requested by GE.1, the SDG is also submitting a paper on Draft Trial
Releases, in the UN Process, of 9735 Syntax versions
(TRADE/WP.4/R.1187). This
document is for approval.
- Document TRADE/WP.4/R.1213 contains an
introduction to Part 5 and Part 6 of
the proposed Version 3 of the UN/EDIFACT syntax 9735 (see documents
TRADE/WP.4/R.1214 and
TRADE/WP.4/R.1215).
All three documents were submitted by
the Security Joint Working Group and the last two documents are for approval.
- The United Kingdom delegation has submitted document
TRADE/WP.4/R.1216 and
the German delegation has submitted document TRADE/WP.4/R.1218,
both containing
comments on the revision to the UN/EDIFACT Syntax 9735 (document
TRADE/WP.4/R.1157 and its addenda). These documents are for review and
discussion.
- UN/EDIFACT Rules for presentation of standardized message and directories
documentation (TRADE/WP.4/R.1023/Rev.2) was submitted
to the September 1995 session where it was agreed to place it on this agenda for approval.
- The Message design guidelines group will submit the final version of the
revised message design guidelines (TRADE/WP.4/CRP.40) for review and
discussion. As of 5 February 1996, this document had not yet been received by
the secretariat.
- As indicated in their terms of reference (the submission date having been
modified during the September 1995 session), the first draft of Ad hoc Group
1's recommendations on processes and procedures
(TRADE/WP.4/R.1189) will be
presented for discussion. It may contain items for approval with regard to the
work still to be done.
- TRADE/WP.4/R.1190/Cor.1 contains a report
on the pilot implementation of
interactive UN/EDIFACT messages and is being submitted by the Interactive EDI
group for review and discussion.
- An verbal report will be made on the progress and status of the Basic
Semantic Repository (BSR) project by the Chairman of the BSR Management
Committee.
Item 4 - UN/EDIFACT policy and promotion
- A final report from the Ad hoc group on national/regional/international
messages established during the March 1994 session of WP.4 will be available
for decision (TRADE/WP.4/R.1180).
- Document TRADE/WP.4/R.1217 contains
comments from the French delegation on
national/regional messages. This document is for discussion.
- A decision will be made on the following proposal from the ESG and the
EDIFACT Rapporteurs for directory production frequency, as recorded in
TRADE/WP.4/GE.1/R.101:
"The UN shall continue to publish two directories per year to
be known as UN/EDIFACT directories.
- Within these directories:
- messages will have a release
number that increments each time
DMR(s) are applied to the message
(as already implemented in D.94B,
D.95A and D.95B);
- a release history for all messages will
be included;
- the Status of 1 and 2 will be abolished.
As a consequence, in the future, all messages
contained in UN/EDIFACT directories will have an equal
status and all directories will be considered as being
for implementation.
The above implies that when users decide to implement
messages, they must decide on the most appropriate
message version with its supporting directories. This
reflects the existing business reality."
Item 5 - Reports from UN/EDIFACT Steering Group and
UN/EDIFACT Rapporteurs
- A report on the activities of the UN/EDIFACT Steering Group from the ESG
Chairman will be submitted as TRADE/WP.4/CRP.37. This document is for
discussion and may contain recommendations for approval. As of 5 February 1996,
this document had not yet been received by the secretariat.
- A report on recent developments in the regions from the Regional
UN/EDIFACT Rapporteurs is provided in document TRADE/WP.4/CRP.38. This
document is for information only. As of 5 February 1996, this document had not
yet been received by the secretariat.
- The chairman of the Ad hoc group on duplicate/overlapping functionality
will present a progress report (TRADE/WP.4/CRP.39) for discussion. As of 5
February 1996, this document had not yet been received by the secretariat.
Item 6 - UN/EDIFACT Directories and Message Types Submitted
as Status 0
- The Draft UN/EDIFACT directory D.96A,
including the statement from the
Pilot Directory Audit Team on the quality of the D.96A directory is submitted
for approval as (TRADE/WP.4/R.1182) .
- The UN/EDIFACT Rapporteurs have submitted, or intend to submit, the
following message types for information as Status 0. The list reflects
information received when the revised agenda was prepared.
Item 7 - International standardization affecting trade
interchange
- The Standards Liaison Rapporteur's executive summary is found in
TRADE/WP.4/R.1191. This document is for discussion and contains
recommendations for approval.
- Documents, TRADE/WP.4/R.1192
(Resolutions adopted at the meeting of
ISO/TC 154), TRADE/WP.4/R.1193
(Liaison Statement to UN/ECE/TRADE/WP.4 from
ISO/IEC JTC1) and TRADE/WP.4/R.1194
(Open-edi Reference Model Standard -
proposed second CD, with revision mark) are submitted by the secretariat for
information.
Item 8 - Codes and policy related to codes
- No documents had been received or planned for this
agenda item as of 1 December 1995.
- As decided during the March 1995 Session of GE.1, this item has been added
to the agenda. Document TRADE/WP.4/R.1200
contains the Report from the Steering
Group for the International Trade Transaction Model. This document is for
discussion.
- The Pan American EDIFACT Rapporteur has submitted the
TRADE/WP.4/R.1212
(The Business and Information Modelling Framework for UN/EDIFACT) which was
prepared by the JRT Business and Information Modelling Group. This document is
for information and circulation within the EDIFACT Regions for comment.
Item 10 - Multilingualism in Electronic Data Interchange for
Administration, Commerce and Transport (UN/EDIFACT)
- TRADE/WP.4/CRP.44 contains the September 1995 report and
TRADE/WP.4/CRP.45 contains the March 1996 report of the Rapporteur on
Multilingualism and Terminology. These documents are for information and
discussion. As of 5 February 1996, these documents had not yet been received by
the secretariat.
Item 11 - Interim reports from the Ad-hoc groups for
Implementation of the Re-engineering Proposals
- The three ad hoc teams established to develop the plans and terms of
reference necessary for implementation of the Re-engineering proposal approved
at the September 1995 WP.4 meeting will present their interim reports:
TRADE/WP.4/CRP.41 from the Programme Development Group; TRADE/WP.4/CRP.42 from
the Centre Implementation Group; and TRADE/WP.4/CRP.43 from the Empowerment
Group). These interim reports are for discussion. As of 5 February 1996, these
documents had not yet been received by the secretariat.
Item 12 - Legal and commercial aspects of trade facilitation
- TRADE/WP.4/CRP.46 contains the report from the Legal Rapporteurs. This
document is for information and discussion.
- TRADE/WP.4/R.1219 contains a project proposal from the French delegation
for the negotiation and management of the interchange agreement. This document
is for discussion and may require decision on certain of the proposals put
forward in paragraph 9.
Item 13 - Other business
- The Norwegian delegation has submitted a proposal for the distribution of
documents on CD-ROM (TRADE/WP.4/R.1221).
This document is for discussion.
Item 14 - Adoption of the Report of the fifty-third session
- In accordance with established practice, the Meeting of Experts will
adopt the Report of its fifty-third session in the form of a summary, prepared
by the secretariat, of decisions taken during the session, to be presented to
the Working Party for approval.
_____________
|
