Pan-Asian e-Commerce Alliance Supports New UN Treaty on Paperless Trade Facilitation
20 October 2016 – Pan-Asian e-Commerce Alliance (PAA) fully supports the new United Nations (UN) Treaty on Paperless Trade Facilitation which was opened to members for signing on 1 October 2016. The Agreement provides the framework for cross border electronic exchange of trade documents, as well as for the respective governments to adopt message standards and secure data communication protocols, thereby harmonizing various initiatives on bilateral and multilateral paperless trade initiatives. Further, the Treaty serves as a tool for an efficient implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and the WCO Revised Kyoto Convention.
As a pioneer in realizing cross border paperless trade and transactions, the PAA continuously extends its collaboration with other international organizations specializing in paperless trading. PAA members contributed their expertise and experience in facilitating paperless trade, with active participation during the Legal and Technical Work Group meetings, serving as valuable inputs in the drafting of the agreement.
PAA Chairman, Mr. Francis Lopez highly appreciated the benefit from this new treaty and said, “Tapping on tremendous growth in e-commerce, this treaty supports the coherent and harmonized implementation of paperless trade initiatives in the region and promoting mutual recognition of electronic data and documents to enhance trade. As such, the PAA members are in the best position to further facilitate B2B and B2G secure cross-border paperless trade service in close collaboration with their respective government, and develop more value added services. And we were also honoured to share our insight and experience with the participating government officials and representatives during the Inter-governmental Steering Committee and Work Group meetings.”
About Pan-Asian e-Commerce Alliance
The Pan-Asian e-Commerce Alliance (“PAA”) aims to promote and provide secure, trusted, reliable and value-adding IT infrastructure and facilities to enhance seamless trade globally. PAA was founded in 2000. Current PAA Members comprise CAT of Thailand, CIECC of China, CrimsonLogic of Singapore, Dagang Net of Malaysia, InterCommerce of the Philippines, KTNET of Korea, NACCS of Japan, TEDMEV of Macao SAR, Tradelink of Hong Kong SAR, Trade-Van of Taiwan and PT EDII of Indonesia. Combined customer base of the PAA members now exceeds 340,000 organisations, representing almost all active trading enterprises in the Asian market. For more information about PAA, visit http://www.paa.net.
For more information, please contact:
PAA Secretariat
Attention: Iris Tsang
Direct: +852 2161 4370
Fax: +852 2506 0188 Email: iris.tsang@tradelink.com.hk