The session Digital Transformation of Trade in the EAEU: From Contours to Implementation was held within the Eurasian Economic Forum 2024 in Yerevan. Representatives of government agencies, businesses and the expert community considered key areas of digital transformation of trade in the EAEU, simplification and digitalization of logistics, development of trade in digital goods, as well as new trends and technologies in digital trade in general.
"By some calculations, the adoption of digital technologies in trade more than halves transaction costs and significantly reduces time costs. We already see this in a number of projects that we are implementing," said Andrey Slepnev, Minister in charge of Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission.
At the same time, he warned of inevitable trade barriers if our trading partners switch to paperless technologies, while the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union do not. Today, according to the Minister, a notable part of the digital economy and e-commerce in general is outside of state regulation, so it is necessary to find a reasonable balance between the public interest and business freedom.
"The declaration signed by the leaders of our countries, up to 2030 and until 2045, actively emphasizes the importance of concrete steps in e-commerce. Now we are preparing a detailed plan of what needs to be done in this area," said Andrey Slepnev.
Among the areas in which the work has been underway for several years, the Minister highlighted digitalization of logistics in relations between rail carriers, as well as the issues of labeling of goods, which provides, among other things, a basis for businesses to manage their inventories. Next in line is development of a basic electronic document flow model in mutual trade as a whole, creation of a register of the most successful examples of using artificial intelligence in trade, introduction of a decentralized b2b system of smart contracts, as well as expanded coverage of e-commerce sections in the EAEU free trade area agreements with third countries.
The discussion participants heard experiences and opinions from Victor Sergeev, Executive Director of Sberbank PJSC; Tengfei Wang, Executive Secretary of the ESCAP Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade; Tadzio Schilling, CEO of the Association of European Businesses; Aibek Kurenkeev, President of the E-Commerce Association of the Kyrgyz Republic; Yulia Panina, Chief Operating Officer of KVT Group of Companies; Liliya Shchur-Trukhanovich, Director of the Department for Foreign Economic Activity Development and Regulation of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation; as well as Mohtaram Taghinejad, representative of the В2В marketplace Ecasb (Islamic Republic of Iran). The meeting was moderated by Ilya Kabanov, Head of the Electronic Commerce and Labeling Section of the EEC Trade Policy Department.