FEALAC 25years fealac

Consultation by Specialists, Workshops / Seminars

Background:
An ePhyto system is a computer system through which phytosanitary certificates are prepared and electronically exchanged between National Plant Protection Organizations. “Electronic exchange” means the sending and receiving of ePhytos between two countries.
An ePhyto is the electronic version of a phytosanitary certificate in XML format. All the information contained in a paper phytosanitary certificate is also in the ePhyto. ePhytos can be exchanged electronically between countries or the data printed out on paper. ePhytos are produced in accordance with ISPM 12 including Appendix 1. The adoption of ePhytos facilitates speedy and secure transmission of phytosanitary certificates between trading parties thus eliminating fraudulent certificates.
The ePhyto Project aims to facilitate trade through connection to a Hub for exchange plus the Generic ePhyto National System (GeNS) for developing countries. This system will eventually replace phytosanitary certificates in paper and would create opportunities to facilitate phytosanitary exchange in an innovative, cost effective, and globally harmonised electronic environment. It will promote economic growth of participating economies through lower certification costs and enhance trade facilitation.
Given the wide acceptance of the project for the exchange of experiences in electronic phytosanitary certification systems between Latin American and East Asian countries, and considering the need to have a plan for the implementation of such exchange of experiences, the continuation of the proposal is submitted.
Project purpose:
Development of a strong collaborative relationship between Argentina and Australia on ePhyto to deliver key project objectives of:
1. Enhance internal expertise in ePhyto for Argentina and Australia.
2. Establish Argentina and Australia as leading nations for ePhyto within respective regions.
3. Accelerate the implementation of ePhyto in the NPPOs within respective regions.
4. Promote ePhyto through regions via multilateral institutions (eg. FEALAC, APEC and G20)

The ongoing project has three stages:

The first stage consists of the exchange of experiences between a Latin American country and an East Asian country through missions of technical teams from each country. This first stage has been finalised. In this regard, two Argentine technicians visited Canberra between 8 and 21 of July 2017, where they had fruitful meetings with their counterparts and visited related facilities where they could learn about the way in which they produce their ePhytos.

The second stage consists on sharing the experience gained with other countries of the region through workshops, video conferences, newsletters or any other means deemed suitable for such purpose. This should also be useful to implement potential improvements in National Phytosanitary Certification systems,
apart from electronic exchange. This applies both to Latin American and East Asian countries.

In this respect, from 11 to 13 September 2018 Argentina hosted in Buenos Aires a regional workshop for Latin America and the Caribbean countries, including specialized international agencies such as COSAVE and IICA.

The third stage is achieving implementation at the global level. The previous stages should generate the necessary conditions for the countries to connect to the IPPC hub (exchange standardization at the global level) and for their systems to be fully in line with the scheme proposed by the IPPC.