From Russia with PEPPOL

OpenPEPPOL marks progress during the first international forum “Electronic commerce: challenges of Eurasian integration”.

On February 27th and 28th, in Ufa, the event on the future of E-commerce in Eurasia took place, organised by the Government of the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation. The main topics discussed included the challenges of electronic commerce, the different approaches to development of standards for cross-border trading, issues with cross-border use of electronic digital signature and the set up of trusted third parties.

André Hoddevik, Secretary General of OpenPEPPOL, reported on the importance of PEPPOL for international electronic trade. He emphasized that the results of the PEPPOL project favourably contributed to the development of integration processes within the European Union adding that: “Today, the OpenPEPPOL Association moves forward in the same direction, broadening the boundaries and reaching Russia”.

OpenPEPPOL held meetings with several Russian representatives to strengthen cooperation, resulting in a better understanding of how the public procurement market is developed in Russia, in particular, the different business models, the scope of contracts tendered and possible synergies from a standardisation perspective. The Russian e-Procurement model supports e-Notification through a joint platform and e-Submission with use of e-Signatures through five alternative platforms. Suppliers pay initial fees to submit tender offers and additional success fees if they win a contract.

As a first action to mark the progress, Andre Hoddevik suggested that AETP (Association of Electronic Trading Platforms) and the Eurasian Economic Committee become members of the CEN BII 3 Workshop*, while the EU Publication Office could provide further information on their experiences with e-Notification. The Russian organisations expressed interest in the e-Invoicing approach used by PEPPOL and further discussions took place with Irish, Swedish and Lithuanian companies, also present at the event.

“The forum was important from the viewpoint of functional aspects in the sphere of electronic commerce in Russia and abroad. The dialogue with Russian and foreign partners is indispensable. There is no race and no leaders but there are questions to solve. That is why everybody wins when somebody gets new experience to share”, highlighted Deputy Chairman of the committee of State Duma on economic policy, innovation development and entrepreneurship, Viktor Klimov.

Development director of JSC (Sberbank-AST) Julia Obalyaeva, pointed out at the closing of the forum, that directions of development which were planned in 2012 and aimed at the efficient cooperation of Russia, Belorussia and Kazakhstan remain the same in 2013. In her opinion the outcome of the conference provides the basis for further collaboration at an international level and willingness to continue joint discussions on unified standards of electronic commerce in 2014.

Participation of Russian organisations as members and observers in OpenPEPPOL is currently being discussed and will be evaluated on the basis of mutual cooperation to foster e-Procurement standardisation and connectivity.

*The third phase of the CEN Workshop on Business Interoperability Interfaces for Public Procurement in Europe (CEN BII 3) will have its kick-off meeting on March 21st, 2013, in Barcelona: http://www.cenbii.eu/