Future priorities in focus at eTrade Network workshop

Future pilot actions and priorities were discussed at the 7^th eTrade Network Workshop, which took place in Helsinki, Finland on 9-11 October. During the first day of the workshop, participants also took part in the Digital Transport Days – an EU event dedicated to the digitalization of trade, transport networks and the logistics sector. 

EU4Digital Facility experts presented and together with eTrade Network members discussed best practices in the EU, country state of play, options and solutions to be piloted and preparatory actions developed by the expert team of EU4Digital Facility for the cross-border eTrade, eCustoms and Digital Transport Corridors (DTC) activities. Future networking opportunities were also discussed in order to support knowledge sharing between EU and Eastern Partner countries, as well as to facilitate better connection between electronic trade experts and stakeholders in the region.

During the event, initiatives and projects relevant to the eTrade topic were presented by the participants. These included: 

• FENIX – A European Federated Network of Information exchange in Future Logistics (with overview of SELIS and AEOLIX projects);
• Data Pipeline Solutions for Digital Transport Corridors;
• Block-chain Application for Supply Chain Digitalization.

The eTrade network workshop agreed the following conclusions:

• The need to finalise the establishment of eTrade network working groups by the end of October 2019, since working group members’ involvement in the current Facility stage is significant;
• After presenting the proposed DTC vision, the network suggested to include several activities under the scope of the EU4Digital initiative – develop technical requirements and technical solution for the core integration platform of national eLogistics systems upon its acceptance by the European Commission;
• The solution for the eCustoms pilot – System for Exchange of Excise Data for pre-arrival information (SEED) – was discussed. EaP countries will evaluate their need and priority for solution piloting and piloting country pairs. 
• Priority use case will be identified by EaP countries from the detailed list of possible use cases for the cross-border eTrade pilot developed by the EU4Digital Facility team.

The upcoming eTrade Network workshops in 2020 will be held in Armenia for the spring session and in Azerbaijan for the autumn session.

7^th eTrade Network Workshop

Digital Transport Days 2019