When exporting goods, the exporter often needs to provide a proof of the goods' origin, which can be a certificate of origin (CO). As economic operators are working under time and budget constraints, it was important to go a step further into the simplification of procedures related to the issuance of those certificates.
The Federal Public Service for Economy of Belgium (SPF Economie) and the Federation of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Belgium (FCCIB) elaborated together an important simplification tool, called DigiChambers, based on the new information technologies to achieve the dematerialization of documents, namely certificates of origin.
DigiChambers Ltd. is the structure allowing to set up financially and operationally the dematerialization of certificates of origin.
DigiChambers is operative since January 2009 registering the following benefits and impacts:
- When using DigiChambers the economic operators reduce their costs in time and money thanks to the web-based application that enables:
a- Companies to apply electronically for a certificate of origin
b- Chambers to issue electronically certificates of origin (cfr. uploaded doc. Nr.1)
c- Companies to print at their premises the CO issued electronically by a Chamber
- Digitalization allows the reduction of internal administrative costs (employee cost, access/managing data, employees going to the Chamber to obtain the CO, express courier...)
- It has been calculated that the savings for an economic operator are between 10 and 40 euro per issued CO (50% of the normal cost and even more if DigiChambers is fully linked to the own ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning - system of the operator). In Belgium 229.500 CO have been issued in 2008. For the business community this means an annual potential gain of approximately 5,5 million euro in cost savings.
- Chambers of Commerce are benefiting of streamlining of the delivery process. For the Administration, DigiChambers offers the possibility to carry out online audits in real time. The system facilitates the verification with regards to the authenticity of documents, signatures and stamps apposed on them.
- DigiChambers responds to the objective of administrative simplification of the Belgian government, to the European objective of paperless customs, to the European concerns expressed in the context of sustainable development taking into account the environment issue.
- The digital legalization by Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs (SPF Affaires Etrangères) of the CO issued by the system is currently being discussed as a next step in the electronic delivery procedure.
Policy Context
At the European Union level, the origin and the CO are ruled by the Community Customs Code and its articles of application.
The modernization and simplification of the customs legal and technological environment started several years ago with a major amendment to the Community Customs Code adopted in 2005, which gave EU customs authorities the powers to implement some of the most advanced security requirements in the world. This amendment is expected to be fully implemented by mid 2009.
The Modernized Customs Code will provide the necessary simplifications to make customs and trade work better, faster and cheaper. The Electronic Customs Decision already provides a significant step forward in linking national customs Information and Communication Technology systems. By meeting the needs of modern logistics, a pan-European electronic customs will increase the competitiveness of companies doing business in Europe, reduce compliance costs and improve security at the EU borders.
It is necessary to set out a strategic framework to modernize customs working methods and, accordingly, properly allocate resources, in a coordinated manner. An important example of strategic objectives is the support to the competitiveness of European companies by:
1. Modernizing the environment and the working methods of customs (e.g. by foreseeing the use of systems-based approaches, increased harmonized working methods, etc.);
2. Implementing the paperless customs environment (electronic customs) and
3. Adopting a pro-active approach towards standards, by endorsing international standards such as those developed by the World Customs Organization and developing new EU standards, which could serve as a model worldwide
4. Currently, the Directorate General TAXUD (Taxation and Customs Union) of the European Commission is working on the European legislation related to the issuance of CO in order to introduce the dematerialization of documents. Thanks to DigiChambers, Belgium is one of the leaders in this field.
At the Belgian level, the Partnership Agreement signed on 28/04/1999 between SPF Economie and FCCIB supports these principles and enumerates as main objective a uniform and compliant deliverance policy of CO and the evaluation of the policy itself.
Description of target users and groups
Only companies, as users group, are described here since the other users, Chambers and SPF Economie, are already closely involved in the project and promotional efforts are no longer needed at this stage.
The total number of companies applying for a Certificate of Origin in 2008 is +/- 3.700.
Not all those companies apply regularly for CO’s. According to the figures of 2008:
o   2.081 apply for less than 1 CO per month
o   1.406 apply for between 1 and 20 CO’s per month
o   181 apply for between 21 and 100 CO’s per month
o   32 apply for between 101 and 1.000 CO’s per month
The short term potential of DigiChambers (2009) will differ from category to category:
·        The companies applying for less than 1 certificate per month will at the start be difficult to get involved into the online scheme. We estimate that the potential number of users in this category amounts to 1%.
·        The second category (1-20 CO’s/month) will offer the biggest potential as they are aware of the costs of sending back and forth documents and are also sensitive to the gain of time. We estimate a potential of 20%.
·        The third category (21-100 CO’s/month) will also be very sensitive to the reduction in costs and time but a number of them will probably want to check if they can transfer data from their own IT-platform via XML to our web-application. Some companies will furthermore want to check if all questions relating to liability and security will be answered as satisfactory. Therefore we estimate a potential limited to 15%.
·        In the fourth category (101-1000 CO’s/month) a large number of companies will already have developed solutions to reduce the workload on CO’s that could turn out incompatible with ours or the implementation of the latter may require adaptations on IT or organisational level. Therefore only a potential of 5% is expected.
Targets on short term (2009)
Priority will be given to the second and third category. In these groups the companies who already benefit from other administrative simplifications will be targeted first, since these simplifications exempt a company from submitting supporting documents when applying for a CO. Â
Targets for the next 3 years (2012)
The focus will be expanded to the fourth category as each new customer from it will represent an important number of CO.
Description of the way to implement the initiative
The organizational structure is a key element for a successful implementation and management of the initiative.
·        On a regular basis, SPF Economie and FCCIB (on behalf of the Chambers) meet to discuss implementation issues (uptake, auditing, security, collaboration with WCO and foreign customs organizations, collaboration with SPF Affaires Etrangères,…).
·        The DigiChambers LTD structure (with FCCIB and all Chambers as shareholders) was created to shield the management and financial risk linked to this initiative from the other Chambers’ operations. Various committees have been established to guard the implementation and management of DigiChambers:
o   Board of Directors: strategic, organizational and financial decisions;
o   Steering Committee: decisions on a more technical level that concern the general functioning of the system;
o   Experts group: decisions on a purely technical level that concern the detailed functioning of the system.
It is important to point out that this initiative originated from the partnership between the SPF Economie and FCCIB concluded in 1999. One of the main elements in this partnership is the simplification and automation of the CO delivery process. Several simplification initiatives have been taken since, ultimately leading to the development of the DigiChambers platform.
In order to prepare all concerned parties to use the system, training sessions were organized at first on the level of the Chambers and later on the level of the end-users (group sessions and individual in-company trainings).
On the Chamber level two ad-hoc meetings were organized in order to keep the change management process under control:
·        A benchmark meeting to exchange experiences between Chambers and to discuss actions to promote and implement DigiChambers.
·        A meeting on technical support issues in order to react more efficiently to implementation problems.
A detailed contract has been drawn up with the software provider that developed and hosts DigiChambers. The contract deals a.o. with SLA levels, intervention times and change requests, so that the application runs as smoothly as possible and any unexpected event can be tackled immediately.
In order to minimize the risk of non-acceptance of electronically processed CO, SPF Economie and FCCIB keep close contacts with all main stakeholders (foreign embassies and customs, banks).
In order to follow up closely the uptake of DigiChambers by end-users, statistics are drawn daily.
Together with the SPF Economie, FCCIB follows the current and future developments of electronic CO. This encompasses:
·        follow-up of electronic CO initiatives in other countries
·        discussions with SPF Affaires Etrangères on legalization of electronic CO;
·        meetings with WCO on the single window;
·        participation in working groups with Eurochambres on an electronic CO framework.
Technology solution
On the general outline, the choice was made to use a web-based solution in Java supporting XML and PDF:
·        A web-based solution was chosen in order to reduce difficulties and costs of implementation at users’ level. The objective was to offer access conditions as easy as possible.
·        Data are written down into an XML scheme as XML is a widely accepted standard that makes it possible to import and export data to and from the application. This is one of the best ways to achieve a high level of digitalization and interoperability.
·        Documents are generated in PDF as this is a widely used ISO standard offering possibilities to certify and sign with digital signatures. Furthermore, PDF offers the possibility that other parties countersign an already signed document. This way, digital Certificates of Origin can more easily be integrated into electronic applications in the supply chain at private (banks) and public level (customs).
·        The development is done in Java (J2EE) as this is a widely used and highly performing language.
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On security level the following technologies were withheld:
- An SSL certificate to secure the website
- X509 certificates (PKI – Public Key Infrastructure) to authenticate users and sign the applications. These certificates require face to face verifications.
- 2 firewalls to protect the web servers
- Redundant architecture in order to limit risk of loss of data to a minimum
Main results, benefits and impacts
On quantitative level nearly 10% of all CO issued in May 2009 were issued via DigiChambers (4 months after the official launch). The objective is to issue 50 % of all CO via DigiChambers by 2012.
The fast uptake proofs that the system is indeed cost effective for the companies. Benefits to companies range between 10 and 40 euro per CO. (cfr. uploaded table – doc. Nr. 2)
In Belgium 229.500 CO have been issued in 2008. For the business community this means an annual potential gain of approximately 5,5 million euro in cost savings.
On qualitative level the system proofs to be compliant with the legal requirements in the countries of destination. It also benefits from the support of WCO as it facilitates the realization of an electronic “Single Window†on Customs level.
The immediate benefits for the Chambers of Commerce and the Administration are:
·        A customer-friendly and technology-oriented image on the level of the companies.
·        The ability to audit in real time the issuing of Certificates of Origin.
·        The achievement of one of the main objectives of the Partnership Agreement between the SPF Economie and the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry is to simplify and digitalize the issuing procedure for the economic operators, thus facilitating the exchange of information between economic operators, Chambers of Commerce and the Administration.
·        To offer assistance and an efficient helpdesk service to the Chambers as it is possible to access the process in real time.
Finally it offered the opportunity to start up negotiations with the SPF Affaires Etrangères in order to integrate the legalization of documents in the electronic process.
Return on investment
Return on investment: €5,000,000-10,000,000Track record of sharing
The SPF Economie organized an information session for foreign authorities (customs and embassies) at the World Customs Organization. Â A verbal note has been forwarded to the attention of the embassies.
The SPF Economie is now starting negotiations with foreign countries to conclude a mutual recognition agreement under the name of “Memorandum of Understandingâ€.
Belgium has put forward the realization of Digichambers in the OECD project on the relationship between ICT and the environment.
On European level, an exchange of information occurred between Belgium and other member states interested in going further with their own systems or in adopting a system similar to DigiChambers.
The FCCIB organized 12 sessions (cfr. uploaded table – doc. Nr. 3), such as information seminars, live demos of the application, exchange of experience meetings with representatives of foreign CCIs and Customs, the official launch of the application, presentation of the application at the World Chambers Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (cfr. uploaded presentation – doc. Nr. 4).
In October 2009 the SPF Economie will take part to the European Customs conference “Destination - 100% paperless trading†organized in Lyon by the ODASCE (Office de Développement par l’Automatisation et la Simplification du Commerce Extérieur) based in Paris. Main themes of the conference will be the assignment of responsibility in a paperless environment and secured protection of trading without paper documents.
Lessons learnt
We learned that an online application can only be successful if it answers to the following criteria:
·        The applications need to simplify and/or fasten to a high degree the administrative process.
·        The simplification and/or time saving needs to be translated in cost reduction and/or to enhance the flexibility.
·        The cost saving needs to be measurable, considerable and appreciated as such by the customer:
o   At the level of DigiChambers this is the case for the majority of companies. From simulations the cost-savings amount to a value between 10 and 40 euro. Still this needs to be demonstrated to the customer, since in a number of cases the latter has no idea of the costs at stake.
o   If an additional transactional fee is asked to use the application – as in DigiChambers - this can potentially jeopardize the appreciation of cost reduction as being important.
·        The implementation should not require from the customer any important preliminary investments :
o   DigiChambers is web-based and does not require important investments. Companies that are reluctant to use it, never refer to this kind of costs.
·        A synergy with other simplifications is needed and this should be communicated to the companies:
o   In the case of DigiChambers these synergies are present. Companies that are exempted from presenting documentary proof of origin are easier convinced to use the application. Even the possibility to upload documents electronically or simply fax documents to a fax service is considered to deliver synergetic effects for a number of companies.
·        The digitalization needs to be at pace with other evolutions in that specific department of the customers:
o   DigiChambers concerns staff dealing with customs and logistics, two sectors that have been digitalized these last few years. They are very sensitive to processes that still involve paper documents.
·        It should be clear that the application is compliant with legal requirements
o   This is a critical element in the uptake of DigiChambers, which is compliant to the legislation on Belgian and European levels.
·        The digital signature guarantees the issuance of secured documents and it is accepted for its reliability by the international organizations asking for CO.
Scope: International, National