Bangkok, Thailand, June 12. - NT officially launches the B2B ePhyto Exchange system. Dr. Wongkot Wijaksangsit, NT's Senior Executive Vice President, Digital and Solutions, together with Mr. Francis Lopez, President of InterCommerce Network Services Inc, Philippines and the Deputy Chair, PAA Digital Trade Alliance, jointly launched the electronic phytosanitary certificate exchange system for the business sector, thereby upgrading the export process of Thai plants and plant products to a fully digital system, increasing the country's competitiveness in the global trade arena.
This collaboration is an important step for Thailand. As a central platform provider (THAI NSW), NT has collaborate with partners from both the public and private sectors, including InterCommerce from the Philippines as the B2B ePhyto Exchange development and data exchange service provider, the Department of Agriculture as the issuer of electronic phytosanitary certificates (ePhyto); the Customs Department as the import-export supervisor and supporter of data standard integration; and the National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (ACFS) as the supporter of phytosanitary standards and coordinator of international cooperation, to jointly drive the B2B ePhyto Exchange system into service.
To enhance the country's competitive potential, the B2B ePhyto Exchange system plays an important role for both the business sector and the country as a whole, saving time and costs in operation process, facilitating to entrepreneurs of both counties, and enhancing global trade. The system can be extended to exchange other new documents and connect to other trade platforms which will lead to enhance the country’s trade competitiveness.
Mr. Francis Lopez, President of InterCommerce and Deputy Chair, PAA Digital Trade Alliance, revealed that this business-to-business exchange between InterCommerce and NT is a Public-Private Cross-border Collaboration towards trade facilitation. The exchange of ePhyto certificates for agricultural imports and exports between the Philippines and Thailand is the first step in initiating B2B exchanges between two countries. InterCommerce and NT have been partnership for long time and we are members of the PAA Digital Trade Alliance which now has digital linkages among its members comprising 18 NSW operators and trade/logistics service providers in Asia, Oceania, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Mr. Chaisak Rinkeun, Director of the Plant and Agricultural Materials Control Office, the Department of Agriculture (DOA) said that DOA plays an important role as an issuer of electronic phytosanitary certificates or ePhyto, which are important documents for exporting Thai plants and plant products to global market. The B2B ePhyto exchange launched by NT today will facilitate the private sector to exchange electronics document both business to government and business to business which is reliable, transparent and traceable. The DOA fully supports Thai entrepreneurs in the process of exchanging data through the B2B ePhyto exchange system to enhance to the fully digital trade.
Mr. Kant Klaysuban, Director of the Administration and Development of Information Exchange System for Import Export and Logistics Division, Customs Department, said that the Customs Department is the regulator of THAI NSW platform to oversee the NSW service provisioning and development complying to international standard in order to encourage international trade facilitation. Thai Customs strongly support to enhance THAI NSW platform to be the central platform for trade facilitation of the country. Today, ePhyto certificate has been exchanged through ASEAN Single Window for ASEAN countries and IPPC hub for other region, Thai Customs will collaborate with the other government agencies to have ePhyto exchanging with China within 1-2 years.
Ms. Rujira Chanaram, Director of the Group of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreements and Others, National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (ACFS), said that "ACFS is the government agency who has its role to negotiate and solve problems on the market opening for plant and plant commodity with partner countries and support the test of ePhyto exchange between countries through ASW and IPPC hub including direct point to point connection with some counties. We also establish a joint working group on electronic sanitary and phytosanitary certificates (e-SPS) to be a mechanism to drive the operations of related agencies to be in the same direction.
Dr. Wongkot Wijaksansongsit, NT Senior Executive Vice President, Digital and Solutions revealed that NT is the NSW operator of Thailand has operated and developed NSW services beyond business to government (B2G) and government to government (G2G) but we also extend to business to businesses (B2B). The launching of B2B ePhyto exchange today is the another success on development of THAI NSW platform. NT and InterCommerce are the PAA Digital Trade Alliance member, we collaborate to develop and implement the platform linkage to exchange ePhyto between private sector of both countries for cross-border paperless trade. We plan to have more platform linkage and exchanging with other partner countries.
