EU4Digital is organising a joint cross-border eTrade working group meeting on 24 February 2021 as part of its concluding activities on the eDelivery pilot.

The virtual event marks the successful finalisation of the eDelivery pilots between Armenia and Ukraine (inter-EaP) and Ukraine and Poland (EaP-EU). The meeting has several goals: 

• present the conclusions of eDelivery pilot;  
• share the feedback of piloting countries and their future plans of eDelivery implementation;
• introduce eDelivery roll-out recommendations in the Eastern partner countries;
• discuss further possibilities to test out and further scale up the eDelivery solution in the Eastern partner countries. 

The event aims to gather more than 40 participants including: EU4digital expert team, eTrade working group representatives from all six Eastern partner countries as well as other eDelivery pilot observers.

The successful implementation of the pilot activities marks a stepping stone for both the EU and the Eastern partner countries, as the piloted solution showcased numerous benefits for cross-border data exchange. These benefits have also been noticed and highly appraised by the pilot countries – Armenia and Ukraine. It was identified that the exchange of paper-based invoices with cross-border partners can take up to 10 working days, whereas via eDelivery it takes seconds. Therefore, this results in more efficient communication with cross-border business partners and savings in time and human labour.

While the pilot is limited in its scope i.e. tests solely the invoice data exchange between the piloting countries,  the activity itself has a broader goal – to prepare all six Eastern partner countries for a full-scale solution implementation and further scale-up. For this purpose, the EU4Digital team has concluded the pilot activity by preparing a strategic guide/recommendations report.

The report provides a step-by-step guide with detailed descriptions, prerequisites and proposed timeline of each activity for countries that did not participate in the pilot but are considering implementing the solution. Moreover, it elaborates on specific recommendations for further eDelivery implementation in selected pilot countries, based on the country-specific analysis and experience gained during the pilot activities. 

More information regarding the event as well the recommendations will be available shortly. Stay tuned!