Welcoming paperless trade to accelerate export opportunities

New Zealand food and fibre producers are moving steadily into the new era of “paperless trade” on global markets – and with this comes huge potential for export earnings growth.

This country’s growing list of free trade agreements (FTAs) focus mostly on market access and tariff reduction, but they also promote electronic customs procedures, and digitalisation of trade-related documents and information flows. These are all forms of paperless trade, as the term is now being recognised internationally and pursued with vigour by New Zealand trade negotiators.

Export certification on New Zealand lamb entering the UK, for example, has been digital since that FTA took effect in mid-2023. This year, New Zealand’s major trade agreement with the European Union has a substantial “customs and trade facilitation” section, all about simplifying and digitalising information flows. At last month’s APEC leaders’ forum in Peru, paperless trade was part of the discussion, with ministers encouraging all economies to promote it.

What this means for New Zealand business

For farmers and growers, the challenge — and also the opportunity – is to initiate right on the farm or orchard the information flows that are going to be demanded of them increasingly (and demanded from their competitors too).

New Zealand producers are already collecting and reporting much of this data on their use of resources, their inputs and their production processes. Because it is required by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) or for specific certifications required by customers.

What New Zealand needs to be doing now is ensuring all the data that is required for multiple purposes is being collected and reported – if this information is to be used for multiple purposes and/or shared by machines, a common language needs to be used. That will enable the data to be used for a range of purposes: export documentation, product authentication, transparency on ingredients and production processes, and much more.

Building blocks

Paperless trade – and in fact, a growing array of other trade-related purposes served by digitalised information flows – will rely on the countries involved putting in place all the “building blocks” (APEC terminology) for simplified and digitalised information flows.

Global data standards are high up the list of “building blocks”, these are:

  • Globally standardised forms of identifiers for products, locations, assets and organisational entities
  • Standardised ways of capturing, presenting and sharing digitalised information.

Some of the most widely used open, global data standards today are GS1 standards. They enable border agencies and logistics operators to identify and control with speed and certainty goods that are entering a country, and to easily obtain all the information required for this purpose.

Ultimately, the building blocks for paperless trade include every component of “public information infrastructure” – all the software and hardware technologies that combine to enable rapid and low-cost interoperability of systems and businesses, across and between businesses, governments and countries.

Other information purposes

Rapid technological developments in digital data sharing systems, along with growing demands for greater insight on provenance and sustainability, is driving increased uptake of and drive towards digital information sharing systems globally. This benefits supply chain efficiency as well, as trading partners become more seamlessly interoperable. Product traceability to manage public policy outcomes is another benefit, including food safety and resource and waste management. All require ongoing exchanges of digitalised information.

Adding credibility

In a real sense, each farmer or grower needs to produce digitalised information as well as food and fibre. Each type and batch of a particular product is twinned with its own unique set of data from the beginning. We think of “telling the New Zealand story” in export markets: That story becomes more valuable and credible when backed with precise, digitalised information on products in a globally-standard “language” that all customers readily understand.

There’s also a universally accepted dictum: The greater the use of those global data standards by multiple parties, the greater the value of that use becomes for all. 

Paperless trade is the future – and so too are the related digitalised information flows for a growing array of other purposes. For New Zealand and others, the challenge now is to ensure we have the building blocks in place, including GS1 global data standards.

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