Working Groups

TCI Women

Space for women to discuss their participation and steering TCI activities.

Accounting and Audit

The work of the Domain covers the following topics:
a) Accounting and Audit covers the recording of accounting entries, the processing and control of accounting documents; the exchanges of these entries and documents tak amongst accountants or certified/chartered accountants, auditors, enterprises, economic partners of the enterprises, private and public collection bodies, as well as service providers, etc.
b) Registration includes information related to taxation, new business filings, business amendments and other information filings required by governmental agencies; the exc this information takes place between the enterprises and the registration authorities.
c) Financial Information Services includes administrative, credit and risk reporting, financial statements, filings and similar exchanges that are applied across business and administrative sectors.

The key deliverables of the Domain are:
a) The production, maintenance and coordination of standard business components and messages in the fields of accounting, auditing, registration, and financial information
b) The harmonization of business components both from the Accounting and Audit Domain and also from other Domains in the UN/CEFACT libraries.
c) Providing review comments on horizontal issues such as the Message Design Guidelines.
d) Preparation of principles and rules for implementation of standards based exchanges and services.
e) Acting as a focal point for any questions related to accounting and audit related topics within UN/CEFACT.
f) Cooperation with other standards organizations on accounting and audit related topics, such as ISO PC 295, for which a liaison has been established.

Agriculture Fisheries and Agri Food

The work of the Agriculture Domain is divided into several main areas:

• Sanitary issues related to agriculture products and production
• Animal feed and human food safety issues
• Exchange information to support agricultural processes (advice, monitoring, product information, certification)
• Exchange information about marine fishing (monitoring, logging, reporting)
• Track and trace of animals, animal products, plants and plant products
• The deliverables of the Agriculture Domain are:
• Contributions to the UN/CEFACT Core Component Library
• XML schema and UN/EDIFACT messages
• Guidelines for implementation
• Recommendations

The deliverables of the Agriculture Domain are:

• Contributions to the UN/CEFACT Core Component Library
• XML schema and UN/EDIFACT messages
• Guidelines for implementation
• Recommendations

The Agriculture Domain is also involved in:

• Cooperation with CITES about Track and Trace of animal products and plant products
• Cooperation with UNGC and ITC about the UN Blue Numbers initiative

eData Management

The Domain works to support international, regional, and national e-government efforts to improve trade facilitation and e-commerce systems and technology and address issu concerns that may impede this progress. The Domain accomplishes this goal by acting as a focal point for any questions related to recommendations or issues within the scop UN/CEFACT as they relate to regulatory aspects.

Work of the Domain aims to covers the following major topics:

1. Facilitate adoption of new tools and technologies for trade facilitation and eBusiness
2. Facilitate adoption of advanced methods and standards for security and authentication in Buy-Ship-Pay process
3. Cooperation with international institutions like UNCITRAL in the area of eBusiness legal framework
4. Facilitate adoption of standards for interoperable ICT solutions in Buy-Ship-Pay process
5. Facilitate adoption of standards for long term archival of digitally preserved documents, time stamping, electronic signature, mutual recognition and related subjects

Environmental Management

This Domain focuses on establishing the procedures, semantic building blocks and data formats for the electronic interchange of environment related data. It does so by applyi UN/CEFACT methodologies (Core Components, Business Information Entities, Naming and Design Rules, etc.).

Work is coordinated and aligned with UNEP, European Commission, WCO and other environment related organizations where appropriate.

The business procedures supported with the Domain’s outputs often cover private companies, public administration and competent authorities. Business-to-Government (B2G) such as permitting and reporting are within scope, especially if required by international agreements. Also within scope are activities like monitoring (such as emissions monitor sampling, laboratory analysis, and professional surveys and assessments.

Finance and Payment

The Domain identifies and launches supply chain finance projects in order to ensure that the UN/CEFACT portfolio of projects responds to the market requirements, in both the private sectors, and to respond to stakeholder requirements in terms of international interoperability.

Supply chain finance, at its most basic, allows both the buying companies and the suppliers to improve their working capital (a crucial attribute given the recent financial crisis).

Above all, the Domain deals with four streams of activities:

• Supply chain finance: financial services which might be offered by any financial agent in connection with trade documents, like finance-related aspects of e-invoice, orders etc.
• Supply chain documents: the finance-related aspects of any B2B document, going from price list to orders to invoices, which is exchanged between the two trade counter
• Payments and reporting: the area of the former TBG5 projects.
• ISO cooperation: cooperation with other standards organizations on finance and supply chain related topics, such as ISO TC68, for which a liaison has been established.

Health and Insurance

The objective of the Insurance Domain’s work is to facilitate the transfer of information between policyholders, professional intermediaries (agents, brokers), insurers and other parties.

The Domain has developed standardized Core Components for the UN/CEFACT Core Component Library for the following insurances lines of business:

• Motor insurance (private and commercial vehicles)
• Property insurance (private and commercial)
• Liability insurance (private and commercial)
• Insurance for technical risks
• Insurance for marine risks (inland and deep sea)

These Core Components facilitate insurance processes for contract placing and administration as well as claims handling.

The Domain is working in collaboration with CEN TC445

Single Window

This Domain maintains the suite of the recommendations published in the Single Window area. These include, in addition to the introduction of the concept and guidance on ho establish a Single Window operation, recommendations for data simplification and standardization for international trade (Recommendation N°34), establishing a legal framewo international trade Single Window (Recommendation N°35), and a recommendation on establishing interoperability between two or more national Single Window systems (Recommendation N°36, upcoming).

Further work of the Domain includes:
a) Promote the value and use of the Single Window concept and recommendation amongst other UN/CEFACT Domains and third party users.
b) Monitor the implementation and operation of Single Window in order to build a repository of best practices.
c) Identify additional areas of work that can improve the performance of national or international Single Windows.
d) Develop recommendations, standards and other instruments to enhance the efficient and effective exchange of trade related data.

Supply Chain and Procurement

The scope of the Procurement Domain group is to:

• Develop and maintain UN/CEFACT Business Standards to support the procurement processes. This includes Business Process Models, Business Transaction Models an expressed in a syntax neutral way, as well as the corresponding UN/CEFACT syntax solutions.
• Encourage the active participation in the Procurement Domain group of interested user communities in Industry, Trade and Procurement, in accordance with UN/CEFACT membership criteria.
• Maintain close relations with other UN/CEFACT groups as appropriate.
• Promote and support the work of UN/CEFACT.

The purpose of the Supply Chain Management group is to:

• Develop and maintain Business Process Models, the Business Transaction Models, the semantics and the contents in a syntax neutral way that they fulfil the requirement Trade and Industry communities within the framework of the Supply Chain and e-Procurement. The supply chain and e-procurement covers the Purchasing, Material Managem Product development areas
• approve based on the syntax neutral business transactions the corresponding UN/CEFACT syntax solutions provided by the UN/CEFACT Methodology and Technology g
• encourage the active participation in SCM of interested user communities in Industry, Trade and Procurement, in accordance with UN/CEFACT membership criteria
• maintain close relations with other UN/CEFACT groups as appropriate
• Promote and support the work of UN/CEFACT

​Transport and Logistics

The work of the Domain comprises:
a) Maintenance of existing UN/CEFACT data exchange standards which are of relevance to the transport industry, notably UN/XML messages and UN/EDIFACT messag are widely used.
b) Maintenance and further development of business requirements specifications, business information elements and core components important for the transport industry.
c) Further dematerialization of paper based documents in all modes of transport.
d) Include key organizations within the development and maintenance of this work, keeping abreast of evolutions within data exchange standards relevant to the transport and sector, in line with the relevant terms of reference of UN/CEFACT for such collaboration.

Sustainable Fisheries

The overall objective of the ToS is to contribute to integrated maritime governance by promoting, facilitating and supporting the implementation of fishery data standards on a g

The ToS is expected to achieve its overall objective and implement the necessary activities on the assumption that:
(a) there is active participation and contribution by experts from governments, academia, civil society and the private sector during meetings of the ToS, and through other rel networks;
(b) Governments are willing to engage in policy dialogue with key stakeholders for sustainable fishery management and take measures to implement policy recommendation standards; and
(c) extra-budgetary resources for capacity-building, advisory services and field projects are adequate.

To achieve this goal the ToS will:
(a) Actively promote fishery data standards on policy and technical levels;
(b) Share experiences on the implementation of fishery data standards;
(c) Develop and share best practices on fishery data standards;
(d) Advise and assist on implementation issues concerning fishery data standards and how to relate to broader sustainability standards and certification;
(e) Propose changes to standards in the Agricultural, Agri-Food and Fishery PDA of UN/CEFACT.

Travel and Tourism

The major work of the Travel and Tourism Domain is as follows:
a) The maintenance of SLH related Process Projects and their relevant code list
b) The development of standards of DTI Process Project and the relevant code list
c) Study on the new technologies relevant to the Domain, such as considering the use of smart phones, cloud technology, big data, etc.

Further work of the Travel and Tourism Domain includes:
a) Any new working areas of the Domain, including reservation and information exchange on experience travel programmes, restaurants, travel related data, etc.
b) Study on ensuring the interoperability of existing major information systems created by EDIFACT, XML technologies, etc.
c) Acting as a focal point to facilitate global travel trade