Keynote speech by Ms. Danuta Hübner
UN Under-Secretary-General
and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe
to the Seventh Plenary Session of UN/CEFACT
Geneva, 28 March 2001
Mr. Chairman,
Dear colleagues and friends,
I am here, at the opening of the 7th Session of the
UN/CEFACT to thank you for your work and to encourage and invite you to go on, to continue
your endeavours which support business, trade and administrative organizations from
developed, developing and transition economies in their effort to improve their
performance, and to exchange products and relevant services efficiently and effectively to
the benefit of the society as a whole. My gratitude goes to the colleagues in the Working
Groups and initiatives in the UN/CEFACT who work for the simplification of trade
procedures and create new standards for electronic business. As we all know, there are
enormous changes around us. Economic progress and trade have dramatically changed the
world economic landscape over the last decades. Yet not all countries have fully benefited
from this. Trade liberalisation, regional integration, the technical revolution and
globalisation offer great opportunities but they also generate great challenges to all of
us. Your work greatly facilitates overcoming them.
We all also know that trade liberalisation alone, crucial as it is,
cannot bring full benefits without simplifying trade procedures. Multilateral trade
negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organization have resulted in a
substantive reduction of overall tariff protection worldwide. As tariffs become less
important, but trade procedures remain complex and complicated, full benefits from trade
liberalisation are unlikely to be attained. Therefore, there is a growing interest among
actors in the multilateral trade negotiations in reducing or eliminating procedural
barriers in order to simplify and thereby stimulate international trade.
This is what the UN/CEFACT is doing: identifying, simplifying,
harmonising and aligning public and private sector practices, procedures and information
flows relating to international trade transactions in goods and related services. I hope
you would agree with me that the last year was a good year in your work. New key
deliverables of the Centre were prepared and submitted for adoption to this Plenary. Let
me note here the revised Recommendation 18: Facilitation Measures Related to
International Trade Procedures and the Addendum and Informative Annex to
Recommendation 1: the UN Layout Key for Trade Documents and a new version of the
Compendium of Trade Facilitation Recommendations. The earlier version of the Compendium
enjoyed wide popularity in trade diplomacy circles, and I believe that the new one will be
equally useful. What we need now is to bring these products closer to the user community
by a broad promotion campaign. We know, however, that what really matters is the
implementation.
Let me mention another area in which the UN/CEFACT has made some
progress, too - information and communication technology. It is the driving force in the
transition from resource-based economies to economies and societies that are based on
information, skills and knowledge. Particularly, for economies in transition in our region
and for developing economies, information and communication technology (ICT) is an
opportunity to leapfrog some long and painful stages in the development process, thereby
saving time and resources. We highly appreciate the work done in the framework of the
electronic business XML initiative, from which small and medium sized enterprises
throughout the world, particularly in the transition and developing countries, will
benefit. The EDIFACT Working Group, which maintains the only global and internationally
recognised standard for electronic business, also recognises the need to make a bridge to
the fast-moving development of technologies. It is important to include the products of
this and other efforts undertaken within the UN/CEFACT into our overall work on
simplification and harmonisation of international trade processes, through providing
interoperability based on open standards that can work together. Another positive
development is the drafting by the Legal Working Group of the UN/CEFACT of a new
Recommendation on the use of self-regulatory instruments which can add reputation leverage
to the position of trading parties. This draft Recommendation is also submitted to you for
adoption.
What also strongly matters in our work is reaching out to others, is
working together with other organizations who have the same objectives – to make
trade a driving force for economic and social development. The UN/ECE and the UN/CEFACT
maintain a large network of external contacts in the area of multilateral trade diplomacy.
I would like to emphasize here the importance of the Memorandum of Understanding between
the UN/ECE, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The
Business Object Summit, hosted by us last November, was an excellent manifestation of the
collaboration of the four standard-setting institutions. The text of a new Memorandum of
Understanding between the UN/ECE and the World Customs Organization (WCO) has been
submitted to this Plenary for adoption and I will be happy to sign it with Mr. Michel
Danet, Secretary General of the WCO, in the near future.
You will make important decisions on future activities of the
UN/CEFACT. This Plenary Session is expected to discuss a new strategy for the development
and implementation of open, interoperable global standards and specifications for
electronic business. The Centre is also seeking the reassessment and intensification of
its work on trade facilitation in economies in transition, which gradually evolve into
equal participants in the standard-setting process in this field. The ECE Secretariat is
fully supportive of both trends in the development of the UN/CEFACT, and I believe that
the United Nations, the UN/CEFACT and the broader user community will benefit from the
continuation of this work within the framework of the United Nations.
Before I close my remarks, I would like to thank so much Mr. Henri
Martre for his excellent work as the chair of the UN CEFACT. Let me also thank Mr. Ray
Walker for working with the Secretariat in preparing the UN/CEFACT Conference we have just
had. I want to thank all speakers. The Conference has contributed greatly to your
decision making debate of today and tomorrow. I wish you an efficient and useful meeting.