Background

The “United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations” (UN/LOCODE) is an international standard and one of the UNECE’s flag-ship products, widely used in the trade community and in other areas. Although managed and maintained by the UNECE, it is the product of a wide collaboration in the framework of joint trade facilitation efforts undertaken between the United Nations, other international organizations, governmental bodies and the business community.

Aiming at a better service to the UN/LOCODE user community and a sustainable development of UN/LOCODE, the UNECE secretariat strives to meet growing demands with limited resources. In 2015, the UN/LOCODE Focal Point Network was set up in order to improve data quality with support from governmental authorities. This was supplemented by the UN/LOCODE Advisory Group which was set up in 2017 to provide a platform for all interested stakeholders to be able to play a more important and active role in UN/LOCODE maintenance and development. Because resources required by UN/LOCODE maintenance are beyond the capacity of the Secretariat to reach the data quality expected from the UN/LOCODE user community, the workflow of Data Maintenance Requests (DMRs) validation was revisited in order to be optimised with a good use of the knowledge and experience of the UN/LOCODE Advisory Group in 2018.

What’s more, the revision of the UNECE Recommendation 16 project will be finished as scheduled and presented to the group this year.

According to its ToRs of the UN/LOCODE Advisory Group, a face-to-face meeting should be scheduled at least once per year to discuss and decide all important issues related to UN/LOCODE. This year’s meeting will be held in Xiamen on 27-28 November 2019.

Objective and Target Audience

Objective
In the past year, we are experiencing three milestones on UN/LOCODE development:

Revision of the UNECE Recommendation 16 since its third edition in 1998;
Implementation of the new workflow for DMR validation by the maintenance team since approval at the last UN/LOCODE Advisory Group Annual Meeting; and
Re-engineering the UN/LOCODE system.

This meeting will aim to share information related to activities mentioned above with the group, explore questions and concerns, review changes and improvements on UN/LOCODE, and discuss the way-forward:

Review the new workflow by the maintenance team to evaluate if it addresses key difficulties, challenges and concerns discussed at the last meeting and to improved it if necessary;
Share the revised Recommendation which is ready for submission to the next UN/CEFACT Plenary for approval; and
Agree to the business requirements of the new UN/LOCODE system.

Target Audience
The UN/LOCODE Advisory Group members including representatives of the UN/LOCODE user community, UN/LOCODE Focal Points, and UN/CEFACT experts; the UN/LOCODE re-engineering project team members; International Organizations.

Agenda and Documents

Welcome address
Speech by Maria Ceccarelli, OiC Director, ECTD/UNECE
Speech by Sue Probert, Chair, UN/LOCODE Advisory Group
Speech by Yueming Qiu, Vice President, CNIS

Item 1. Adoption of the agenda
UNLOCODE-AG/2019/INF.1 - Agenda

Item 2. Election of officers

Item 3. Introduction of experts

Item 4. Report from the secretariat
UNLOCODE-AG/2019/INF.2 - Report on UN/LOCODE
Presentation by Yan Zhang, UNECE

Item 5. New developments
Presentation by Jose Acuna, FAO, Media PPT
Presentation by Sue Probert, Chair, UN/CEFACT
Presentation by Yinfen Zhang, National Focal Point for China
Presentation on IMO FAL Revision

Item 6. Revised UNECE Recommendation 16
Presentation by Alper Keceli, Project Leader and National Focal Point for Turkey
Presentation on Consideration of the definition of a T&T Location

Item 7. UN/LOCODE maintenance
Speech by Bertrand Geoffray, Co-convenor of Maintenance Team
Presentation by Tiago Spengler, National Focal Point for Brazil

Item 8. UN/LOCODE re-engineering project PPT
UNLOCODE-AG/2019/INF.3 - UN/LOCODE Re-engineering Business Requirement Analysis Report
Presentation by Wenfeng Sun, Project Co-leader
Presentation by Jiajun Shen, IMO

Item 9. Adoption of the programme of work for 2020-2021
UNLOCODE-AG/2019/INF.4 - Draft programme of work for 2020-2021 of the UN/LOCODE Advisory Group

Item 10. Future work

Item 11. Other business

Item 12. Adoption of the decisions
UNLOCODE-AG/2019/INF.5 - Decisions

Third Meeting - UN/LOCODE Advisory Group

Follow UNECE