Global Momentum on Digital Trade: What’s next for the Netherlands?

Digitalization is an accelerating trend that is transforming international trade to be efficient, seamless and secure; for business, digitalizing supply chains represents a generational opportunity to drive efficiency and enable them to meet the increasing demands for traceability, data, and resiliency in today’s turbulent geopolitical environment.

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is leading a global campaign to drive forward the digitalization of trade, led by the Digital Standards Initiative (DSI) and every ICC national committee working with governments, industry and multilateral organizations. This covers legal reform – through the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) – as well as standards harmonization and alignment, and building capacity for digital transformation.

Currently over half of the G7, and a number of forward looking smaller states such as Singapore, Bahrain, and the UAE, have aligned their legal systems to MLETR, thereby providing the framework for their trading businesses to go fully digital with all the advantages that entails. Four of the Netherlands top five trading partners (Germany, UK, France, USA) are already on the road to legalizing the use of electronic records in trade.

Where does this leave the Netherlands with its slower transition from paper to data? What is the key to accelerate government action on digital trade and to reorient trade policy around digital? If government does not move decisively on MLETR in the near term, what does that mean for business, industry and finance and their respective digitalization agendas?

To address these challenges and develop strategies to drive action on digital in the Netherlands, ICC NL will host a roundtable on June 27th at the Malietoren in The Hague. This event will bring together expertise on digital trade from ICC and its national representatives from the UK, France, Germany, and Belgium as well as leaders on digital trade from finance, shipping and logistics, industry, and law.

The roundtable will incorporate both panel discussions that will build a common understanding of the steps – legal, financial, industrial – needed to digitalize trade successfully, drawing on the experiences of other countries, as well as brainstorming on how to apply this in the Netherlands.

Following the roundtable, we will host a private dinner at the Haagse Club to continue our discussions in a more informal setting.

AGENDA

Here are the event details:

Thursday, the 27th of June

Malietoren, the Hague

14:00 - Welcome

14:10 - Introduction   to MLETR and Status of Implementation globally

Presented by:   Luca Castellani, Legal Officer of UNCITRAL (online)

- Overview   of MLETR (Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records)

- Key   benefits and significance of MLETR in the digital age

14:20 - Electronic   Trade Documents Act: Lessons Learned   from the UK

Presented by:   Chris Southworth with a representative from the UK Government

Overview of   the ETDA

Overview of   data highway created between Singapore and the UK

Key takeaways   and lessons learned

14:35-15:05 - Update on   implementation in Neighboring Countries (7-8 min each + questions)

-          France,   Emmanuelle Butaud Stubbs

-          Germany,   Oliver Wieck

-          Belgium, Julie   Deré

15:05 – 15:25 - Update from the ICC Digital   Standards Initiative: What is global business doing to drive the   digital trade agenda

Presented by Pamela Mar

With Q&A

15:30 -16:45 - Brainstorming / Roundtable discusson 

Focusing on actions by industry, finance, legal issues

25 minutes discussion at tables,   followed by reporting back conclusions and discussion in the whole group.

Outcome: strategy for implementing digital trade in NL, covering:

- Engaging the government

- Engaging business

- Building capacity

16:45 – 17:15 - Where do we go from here?

Consensus on next steps

17:15 - Drinks and private Dinner

Haagse Club