Towards an integration of national Single Window systems into Regional SW platforms

International Trade Single Window (SW) systems are usually created at national level to provide traders with a single access point for exchanging a broad spectrum of documents and data related to international transactions with Customs and Other Government Agencies. This is also the case of the APEC members, as all of such countries have currently adopted SW systems. A future challenge is to find a solution for interconnecting them into a Regional Single Window platform.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a regional economic forum established in 1989 to promote free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

APEC's 21 members aim to create greater prosperity for the people of the region by promoting balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative and secure growth by accelerating regional economic integration. One of the tools that are currently being explored in order to enhance the economic integration in the APEC region and improve trade is the creation of a Regional Single Window (SW) system.

A new publication from APEC explores best practices and lessons learned from implementing SWs in the various countries in the world and how such systems can be interconnected with each other, in particular within the APEC Region.

The APEC Compendium of Best Practice Technology Solutions for Single Window Interoperability takes a detailed look at the current state of the APEC member single window systems, exploring the main challenges for realising their interconnection (like, for instance, the existence of a variety of data formats such as: UN/EDIFACT, ANSI X12, XML, and other proprietary formats for exchanging international trade-related data and documents), in the light of new technologies like blockchain, as a possible solution for interlinking in the future the APEC members’ SW systems.