Since 2013 a number of important developments have taken place affecting international trade. These developments, which could provide significant trade facilitation opportunities for UN/CEFACT, include:
• World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement;
• UNECE-UN/CEFACT Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide (TFIG) which has been published and is being widely disseminated worldwide.
During the 25th UN/CEFACT Forum in Geneva in April 2015, a recommendation was developed by the experts on the use of a single core component technical specification for future UN/CEFACT eBusiness developments. This recommendation has been adopted by the Bureau.
UN/CEFACT will now be able to provide stakeholders with a business process driven approach and a coherent set of specifications and tools to develop their requirements.
The proposed project is, therefore, to develop an international Supply Chain Reference Data Model, with the following objectives:
• Development of a reference data model which will be based on the Reference ABIE structures of the Core Component Library and designed to be easily maintainable by UN/CEFACT
• Provide, through this reference data model, a standardized and harmonized semantic framework fully compliant with UN/CEFACT Core Components which will be easy to use and which will encourage interoperability between syntaxes for data exchange structures
• Provide links between UN Layout Key documents, UN/EDIFACT message implementation structures and the Core Component Library for reuse in syntax (including XML) implementations
• Produce guidelines for using the reference data model to define subset document structures
e-Business communication in the Supply Chain sector is extensive and often conducted through UN/EDIFACT messaging systems, which were developed and are maintained by UN/CEFACT. For the purposes of also supporting XML and other data exchange syntaxes, UN/CEFACT has in the last decade developed the Core Components Library, a neutral and syntax independent business data library using modern data modelling techniques based on CCTS v2.01.
UN/CEFACT has published a series of document-centric XML schemas; this project will develop a reference data model which will enable business process-driven CCBDA- conformant schemas to be developed, published and maintained by UN/CEFACT.
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