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Trade Facilitation and E-business(UN/CEFACT)

Introduction

unecefact
The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) is a subsidiary, intergovernmental body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) which serves as a focal point within the United Nations Economic and Social Council for trade facilitation recommendations and electronic business standards. It has global membership and its members are experts from intergovernmental organizations, individual countries' authorities and also from the business community.

In focus

The Sustainable and Digital Trade Facilitation Week, will be held in-person at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland from 8 to 12 July 2024. It will feature the 42nd UNEFACT Forum on 8-10 July 2024 and the 30th UN/CEFACT Plenary on 11-12 July 2024.

Furthermore, the secretariat will organize a policy discussion contributing to the strategic priorities of UNECE focusing on the green and digital transformations and climate action.

International organizations, development partners, trade facilitation experts and business community are cordially invited to participate in the various events of the week. More details will be available closer to the date.

UNECE-UN/CEFACT is pleased to share the annual newsletter 2023, highlighting key milestones and activities that shaped our dynamic and impactful year. Throughout the year, the dedicated efforts of our expert community have been instrumental in restoring disrupted supply chains, addressing the challenges posed by conflicts, and contributing to the green and digital transformations.

The UN/CEFACT standards publication process is currently in progress, with several updates at various stages: 

  • The UN/EDIFACT D23B is pending validation, undergoing careful review to ensure accuracy.
  • Simultaneously, the UN/CCL D23B has been completed and awaits uploading to the ECE website for public access.
  • Additionally, we are pleased to announce that the UN/LOCODE 2023-2 publication is now complete, providing valuable location code information. We are dedicated to delivering reliable and up-to-date standards, and we appreciate your patience as we finalize these crucial publications for the benefit of the global trade community.

UNECE website issues: broken links: UNECE Trade Facilitation publications may be experiencing unavailability issues due to broken links or URL redirects. We understand the inconvenience this may cause, and we apologize for any difficulties in accessing the necessary resources. Rest assured, our technical team is actively working to resolve these problems, and we anticipate a full resolution by the end of August. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this period, and we are committed to ensuring seamless access to the publications moving forward.

Highlights

9 April 2024: UN/CEFACT is pleased to launch a call for participation for the new project "Facilitating Export Control and Compliance Procedures". The purpose of this project is to discuss how trade facilitation principles, such as embodied in the WTO TFA and UN/CEFACT recommendations, can be used to assist economic operators complying with export control requirements.. The project will take stock and map the procedures and documentary requirements resulting from export control regimes, narrowing on specific area such as dual use items and sanction regimes..  If you would like more information, please contact the project lead: Aleksei Bondarenko.

9 April 2024: On-line registration to the UN/CEFACT 42nd Forum is open now.  Detailed information will be available in the Forum website

9 April 2024: This is to announce a 60-day public review until 9 June 2024 concerning the Business Requirements Specification on Digital Product Conformity Certificate Exchange - High Level Process. Please use the Public Comment Log provided to facilitate the preparation of a Disposition Log by the Project Team.

9 April 2024: This is to announce a 30-day public review until 9 May 2024 concerning the White Paper on Geofencing Facilities in Transport and Logistics. Please use the Public Comment Log provided to facilitate the preparation of a Disposition Log by the Project Team.

7 March 2024: Cutoff date for the data maintenance request is 30 April 2024 for the new D23A cycle.

27 February 2024: We are pleased to inform you that the UN/EDIFACT directories are now back online and fully operational! After a brief interruption due to technical issues, we have resolved the matter and restored access to the directories.  You can access the directories via the following link: UN/EDIFACT Directories.

26 January 2024: The UN E-learning Course on Blockchain in Trade Facilitation will be officially launched by UNCTAD and UN Regional Commissions via webinar on 6 February, where ECE will share experience on its framework initiative and pilot use cases. Please sign up the course for more details: https://tfelearning.unctad.org/blockchain.

 

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Upcoming Events

08 - 12 July

Palais des Nations
Geneva
Switzerland

08 - 10 July

Palais des Nations,
Geneva
Switzerland

10,245,246,247,248,249,274

Recent Events

16 - 17 April

Hapag-Lloyd AG, Ballindamm 25 Hamburg Germany

10,+245,+246,+247,+248,+249,+274