PAA Session in the Asia-Pacific Trade Facilitation Forum x Paperless Trade Week 2026

PAA Digital Trade Alliance participated in the APTFF x PTW 2026, co-organized by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in collaboration with the PAA Digital Trade Alliance. 

The event brought together over 400 in-person participants from nearly 50 countries across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, with close to 600 participants also joining online, bringing together an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and experience on trade facilitation, trade digitalization and public-private collaboration.

Experts from PAA Digital Trade Alliance, including public and private sectors from Phillippines and Thailand, shared their experience in ePhyto implementation to the audience. 

The electronic phytosanitary certificate (ePhyto) could enables the secure, paperless exchange of plant health certificates between countries to streamline trade and strengthen regulatory compliance. The PAA Digital Trade Alliance's B2B ePhyto Exchange between InterCommerce (Philippines) and NT (Thailand) is a live, operational model for public–private collaboration in cross-border plant and plant product trade compliance. The session highlighted the objectives, strategies, benefits, and challenges of establishing a Digital Food Corridor — beginning with the ePhyto and progressively extending to invoices, bills of lading, and other trade documents required for Customs and quarantine clearance — building toward a fully integrated, end-to-end digital trade lane for agricultural products.

As a regional alliance of National Single Window (NSW) operators and trade facilitation service providers, the PAA Digital Trade Alliance advances digital trade across member economies. InterCommerce and NT Thailand work closely with their respective National Plant Protection Organizations — the Bureau of Plant Industry (Philippines) and the Department of Agriculture (Thailand) — as well as Customs authorities, enabling digital transactions between traders and government agencies. Both operators also enable the exchange of the ASEAN Customs Declaration Data (ACDD), the eCO, and the ePhyto with the other ASEAN Member States through the ASEAN Single Window.

The B2B ePhyto Exchange demonstrates how the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (CPTA) can serve as a concrete legal and institutional foundation for bilateral digital trade corridors. The model comprehensively aligns with the CPTA’s core pillars: electronic exchange of trade data and documents, interoperability between national systems, trust and authentication, paperless trade for SMEs, phased and progressive implementation, public–private partnership, and a corridor-based approach designed for regional replication. In this regard, the Standing Committee of the CPTA also adopted a guide on ePhyto implementation.