The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced from Geneva on 14 August that they would extend their partnership to facilitate global trade. The two organizations will leverage their leadership in their respective fields to boost e-commerce in developing countries through improved exchanges of trade data.

It is understood that the extended partnership will enrich their history of working together. This includes the successful integration of air cargo messaging standards (Cargo-XML) into UNCTAD’s automated customs management system, ASYCUDAWorld. For the 100 counties choosing to deploy the latest version of ASYCUDAWorld, this enables more efficient processing of air cargo shipments.

The next stage of the collaboration will focus on enabling ASYCUDAWorld to manage e-commerce shipments more efficiently. It will include adding a risk assessment for mail shipments and facilitating access to the IATA enhanced partner identification and connectivity (EPIC) platform.