Progress Update by T. A. Khan UN/CEFACT Vice Chair AFACT Steering Committee Mid-term Meeting 9-10 May, 2005, Hanoi, Vietnam U NITED N ATIONS C ENTRE F OR T RADE F ACILITATION A ND E LECTRONIC B USINESS Under the auspices of United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UN/CEFACT

Topics covered UN/CEFACT Plenary Bureau responsibilities Trade Facilitation strategy eBusiness strategy UN/CEFACT Policy on Intellectual Property Rights Selection of next UN/CEFACT Chairman UNeDocs development Financing of the UN/CEFACT Forum and Programme of Work 6 th Un/CEFACT Forum Business Requirement Specifications (BRS) XML Naming and design rules Resumption of project halted at the beginning of 2004 Third edition of codes for units of measure Single Window Recommendation 5 th UN/CEFACT Forum

UN/CEFACT Portfolio E-Business Trade Facilitation Trade Facilitation Collaborative work plan to enable eBusiness and Trade Facilitation. How to facilitate global trade. Promotion of deliverables Monitoring implementation/ collecting feedback & requirements Capacity- building/ technical cooperation Cooperation/ coordination Liaison Feedback Re-use Non-duplication Cooperation/ coordination Liaison Feedback Re-use Non-duplication Strategy External Affairs External Affairs Marketing

UN/CEFACT Portfolio assignments E-Business Trade Facilitation Trade Facilitation Duane Nickull Mark Palmer Mike Doran T. A. Khan Duane Nickull Mark Palmer T. A. Khan Christina Rahlen Strategy External Affairs External Affairs Marketing Santiago Milá

UN/CEFACT Trade Facilitation Strategy The Bureau, after having reviewed existing work on trade facilitation strategy, set up a task force to produce an updated strategy. At the centre of this strategy are the following elements: A holistic approach to the international trade transaction process; The identification and elimination of Non-tariff barriers to trade; Trade security – to address the shift in focus in recent years from the threat to trade to the threat from trade; To promote the use of UN/CEFACT instruments to address trade facilitation issues in the WTO Doha Work programme; To develop Capacity Building programmes on Trade Facilitation Implementation

UN/CEFACT eBusiness Strategy At the centre of this e-Business Strategy are four fundamental elements: Cross-sectoral analysis (to promote interoperability and supply chain synchronicity); Business process and information modelling (to capture user requirements, independent of any specific technology, through the creation of business collaboration models); and New technologies as they emerge (e.g., eXtensible Markup Language (XML), Web Services, shared and/or distributed objects, etc.). international standards for enabling eBusiness systems and interoperability

UN/CEFACT UN/CEFACT Policy on Intellectual Property Rights The 10th UN/CEFACT Plenary established an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy Special Contact Group (IPR SCG) at its May 2004 session to promote UN/CEFACT Specifications without the burden of fees or restrictions. The IPR SCG first met at September 2004 Forum, reviewed other SDOs IPR policies and established consensus on fundamental principles (IPR SCG N04001) A draft IPR Policy has been circulated for comment to SCG members, the Bureau and the Forum Management Group. There are four key concepts in the draft IPR Policy: Waiver Disclosure Exception Handling Warranty

UN/CEFACT Selection of next UN/CEFACT Chairman A search committee, chaired by Ms Christina Rahlin, HOD of Sweden was formed with Messrs Tahseen A Khan, HOD of India, and Mark Palmer, U.S. delegate, together with Mika Vepsaldinen of the secretariat, as members, requested nominations from Member Bodies and actively searched for candidates. The committee prepared a summary of the nomination criteria and the responsibilities of the chair. The secretariat distributed this summary and a call for nominations to Member Bodies. Nominations were due to the secretariat by 15 April 2005.

UN/CEFACT Selection of next UN/CEFACT Chairman The Search Committee reviewed the U.S. nomination of Mr. Stuart Feder and determined that he meets the nomination criteria and is committed to fulfilling the responsibilities of the UN/CEFACT chair. The nomination and Mr. Feder's CV is now forwarded to Plenary for review and a vote at the June meeting. Issue: Participation of the Asia Pacific region in the selection process as it included nominations from ECE member countries only ?

UN/CEFACT UNeDocs development The UN/CEFACT at its last meeting in Kuala Lumpur launched a major new initiative that provides electronic alternatives to key paper documents in the international supply chain. It has adopted the United Nations electronic trade documents project (UNeDocs) as the basis for a new, global standard for digital trade documents. UNeDocs had previously been developed as a joint project between the United Nations Economic Commission of Europe and SITPRO, the United Kingdom trade facilitation agency, with financial support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO)

UN/CEFACT UNeDocs development UN/CEFACT has set up the UNeDocs TBG2 Working Group to develop the paper and electronic specifications for the core documents used in international trade. The Group will also develop customized document specifications to support national, regional and international projects for Single Window implementation and paperless trade.

UN/CEFACT Financing of the UN/CEFACT Forum and Programme of Work  The 10 th UN/CEFACT Plenary took note of a an “External Support Services Project Proposal” (TRADE/CEFACT/2004/26) and requested the Bureau to revise it to take into account the decisions of the 10 th Plenary and resubmit the revised document to the Plenary for approval in an intersessional process.  The Bureau after having studied the proposal in detail came to the conclusion that whilst many of the issues which had been identified by the CSG at the time, were still valid, the estimates for the costs of the acquisition of a technical support service provider (SSP) to supplement the services provided to it by the UNECE secretariat were not realistic.

UN/CEFACT Financing of the UN/CEFACT Forum and Programme of Work Experience since the last Plenary has shown that better cooperation could be achieved between the Bureau, the FMG and the Secretariat. This can be further improved by the establishment of a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the Secretariat for the services it has to provide in support of the Plenary, the Bureau the FMG and the Forum. Additional funding is also required in order to ensure that the UN/CEFACT Forum and Programme of Work can be carried out and in order to ensure that the deliverables produced are both credible and acceptable for adoption worldwide. This need has been identified in the past as essential to UN/CEFACT’s strategy, and has been approved by the Plenary.

UN/CEFACT 6 th Un/CEFACT Forum The 6 th Forum was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia form March, The main activities of the forum are as given below. ATG achievements: UML to UN/EDIFACT Transformation Rules Prepared the document for implementation verification (ODP 6) eTendering (TBG6) has volunteered to do implementation verification of the XML NDR ICG achievements: United Nations Recommendation 20 – Units of Measure reviewed and approved for submission to the UN/CEFACT Plenary June 2005 for final approval. UN/CEFACT Registry Specification disposition of comments. All comments received were reviewed.

UN/CEFACT 6 th Un/CEFACT Forum TBG achievements: Approved UNeDocs project Approved creation of 2 new working groups TBG2 : Electronic Documents TBG18 : Agriculture TMG achievements: Successfully delivered UMM/CCTS Training Agreed on BPSS next steps Restarted the Electronic Business Architecture Working Group – Chair: Anders W. Tell

UN/CEFACT Business Requirement Specifications (BRS) At the UN/CEFACT Forum meeting, held in Kuala Lumpur from 14 to 18 March 2005, the Steering Committee of the International Trade and Business Processes Permanent Group (TBG) formally approved the first Business Requirement Specifications (BRS) to be submitted to the next UN/CEFACT Plenary session for approval as UN/CEFACT Business Standards, namely: - Cross industry invoice; - Cross industry remittance advice; - BoostAero e-Supply Chain; - Material Safety Data Sheet; - E-Tendering.

UN/CEFACT XML NAMING AND DESIGN RULES TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION READY FOR IMPLEMENTATION VERIFICATION The Applied Technologies Group (ATG) of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) has announced that the UN/CEFACT XML Naming and Design Rules Technical Specification has completed the public review period under the UN/CEFACT Open Development Process (ODP) and is now ready for Implementation Verification. It has been re-released as Version 1.1.and may be downloaded from the ATG web site at

UN/CEFACT TMG Steering Committee announced the resumption of project halted at the beginning of TMG has invited all to participate in one or more of the following TMG Projects: CC Working Group UN/CEFACT CCTS V2.1 (Part 8 of ebXML Framework) BP Working Group UN/CEFACT Technologies and Methodologies Overview Paper N091 – UMM Meta Model N092 – UMM Reference Guide N093 – UMM User Guide N094 – BCSS (Business Collaboration Schema Specification) Continue working on ebXML BPSS (Business Process Schema Specification)

UN/CEFACT Third edition of codes for units of measure used in international trade, recommendation no. 20, under approval The Information Content Management Group (ICG) of the UN/CEFACT announced the release of the third edition of the codes for units of measure used in international trade, Recommendation No. 20, for public review on 1st Oct It provides a single list of code elements to represent units of measure for length, mass (weight), volume and other quantities, including units of count. This edition of Recommendation 20 includes a number of significant enhancements: New and updated units of measure Allowance for, and inclusion of, a description of the individual units Introduction of status indicator to highlight maintenance activities Alignment of presentation format of the three annexes Annex I (units of measure by quantity) designated as a normative annex that contains only units that are classified as SI or SI equivalent

UN/CEFACT Annex II (units of measure by name) and annex III (units of measure by common code) designated as informative annexes that contain all units Removal of historical references (retained in UN database) Addressed the handling of units with a use identification of “Z” (codes included for information purposes with questionable usage) Marked as deleted, units that are also contained in Recommendation 21(Codes for types of cargo, packages and packaging materials) and introduction of mechanism to allow their use as units of measure Notion of “units of count” introduced for level 3 (informative) codes A full description of the enhancements and the associated annexes are available for download (in both MS Word and PDF formats) from the ICG Web Site at: groups/icg/downloads

UN/CEFACT Single Window Recommendation formally approved This Recommendation was developed by the International Trade Procedures Working Group (ITPWG – TBG15) of the UN/CEFACT International Trade and Business Processes Group (TBG). It was formally approved by the UN/CEFACT heads of delegation in September 2004, after an extensive review process by various industry, governmental and international organizations. A draft of the Recommendation (TRADE/CEFACT/2004/MISC.7) had previously been submitted to the 10th UN/CEFACT Plenary session in May 2004.

UN/CEFACT 5 th UN/CEFACT Forum (13-17 Sep. 2004, USA) UN/CEFACT, the concluded a highly effective meeting in Washington DC. During the week, a number of organizational changes were implemented that will make UN/CEFACT more effective in producing solutions for the business world. The Forum elected new officers and decided to strengthen its relationships with sponsors. A UN Trust Fund will be established to support and accelerate the work, as well as to build an infrastructure for the promotion and dissemination of the standards and technical specifications. Great progress was made in laying out an Intellectual Property Rights policy (IPR) and the first Aggregate Core Components Library was released.

UN/CEFACT 5 th UN/CEFACT Forum (13-17 Sep. 2004, USA) UN/CEFACT has now delivered the first set of Core Components which are the basic semantic elements required for electronic transactions. In the coming years this library will be extended with the business know-how of the many industry experts involved in the Forum. UN/CEFACT has decided to develop a white paper for both Trade Facilitation and an Electronic Business to translate the high level mandate and vision into a concrete strategy and tactical projects. The Forum will strengthen relationships with the existing standard setting organizations and develop new cooperation.

UN/CEFACT 5 th UN/CEFACT Forum (13-17 Sep. 2004, USA) A Forum Management group, under the new leadership of Dick Raman, CEO and President of TIE Holding N.V., will actively seek out the involvement of a wider variety of industries and economic experts. During the meeting, great progress was made in laying out the principles for an IPR policy that ensures the participation of the software vendors for the implementation of the technical specifications and standards. The Forum endorsed business specifications for electronic tendering in engineering and construction and electronic Certificate of Origin for agricultural products, as well as new developments for the codification of business processes, such as supply-chain processes for the Aerospace and Defence industry.5 th

UN/CEFACT S IMPLE, T RANSPARENT AND E FFECTIVE P ROCESSES FOR G LOBAL B USINESS.