Conex signs a partnership agreement with E&P International Inc., China (Shanghai) International Trade Single Window, in the framework of security declarations.

Officialised on the occasion of the PAA (Pan Asian E-commerce Alliance) conference in Paris, this partnership agreement with E&P' makes the Conex pre-customs clearance formality platform the trusted solution for E&P's international carrier and forwarding customers in the context of ICS2.

ICS2, a pre-customs clearance declaration formality, will, by 2025, be extended to include all modes of transport for all goods arriving on European Union soil. It must be made in electronic form, before the departure of the goods and concerns all economic operators who trade with the EU.

The SAFE via conex™ electronic transmission platform meets this security formality and communicates in full regulatory and technological compliance with the central European ICS2 system.

With Conex solutions and EDI exchanges between the two partners, economic operators connected to the E&P’ platform benefit from reliability, security and compliance for the exchange of their messages with the European ICS2 system.

“This partnership, the result of cooperation and collaboration with international players, allows the facilitation of data exchanges with China for all goods destined for the European Union. Sharing our common expertise in terms of customs regulations and technological innovation offers operators facilitating tools,” explains Bertrand Gruson, CEO of CONEX.

“This strategic partnership, leveraging the ICS2 system to align with the new EU safety and security regulations for our clients in China, opens up new possibilities for cross-border data flows and significantly enhances trade facilitation between the EU and China” says Lyu Feng, CEO of E&P.

About E&P

E&P International Inc., established in 2001 by the Shanghai municipal government, is a mixed-capital government enterprise specialising in the construction and operation of Shanghai E-port, promoting digital transformation in the field of international shipping and trade. Since its establishment, the company has devoted itself to the integration of information resources and innovation for Shanghai e-port, while striving to construct the “Shanghai International Shipping Center” and “Shanghai International Trade Center”.

About ICS2

The European Union makes the security of its citizens and the single market a top priority. Every year, trillions of euros worth of goods are imported into the EU. Today the 27 members of the EU represent around 15% of global trade in goods. This new system for the declaration of advance information on goods entering the EU supports the implementation of the European Union Customs Code and the customs risk management program aimed at better protecting the single market and citizens of the EU.

About CONEX

Partner of economic operators in all sectors of activity, CONEX develops and markets a range of collaborative tools for the management of customs and security declarations. Its clients, importing/exporting companies, transporters, RDEs (Registered Customs Representatives), use its solutions and services to optimise and secure the entry, processing and electronic exchange of declarations for all their international exchanges of goods. CONEX has been participating in developments in international trade and the supply chain for nearly 40 years, supporting companies in their customs development, and collaborating with European and international customs administrations. CONEX, whose historic headquarters is located near Lille (Orchies), has offices in Paris, and subsidiaries in Belgium, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Created in 1985, CONEX has around sixty employees.

Agence C3M
Michelle Amiard, michelle@agence-c3M.com

Conex welcomes the Pan Asian E-Commerce
Alliance (PAA) delegation to Paris

Conex, an official member of the Pan Asian E-Commerce Alliance (PAA), is hosting the delegation for its 69^th conference in Paris from May 13^th to 15^th, 2024.

The PAA conference enables reflection and collaboration between these key players in trade between the EU and Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania.

On the agenda: the integration of the Import Control System 2 (ICS2) declaration into export formalities to the EU and other collaborative data exchange projects.

A summit meeting on the digitalisation of customs and security formalities

PAA is a pioneering group in Asia, dedicated to facilitating international trade. Its ambition is to expand its network to other regions of the world. A recognised player in the dematerialisation of customs declarations in France and Europe, CONEX sought to join the group to perfect its recognition in Asia, share its experience, benefit from that of the countries represented, accelerate the interconnections between its own tools and the platforms of international data exchange. CONEX was welcomed to the discussion table in 2021 an associate member of the PAA before becoming a full member last year.

CONEX's membership to the PAA allows it to maintain ongoing relationships with stakeholders who are centre stage of international trade: single windows, technical and regulatory partners, for all players in the supply chain (shippers, multimodal carriers and RDE -Registered Customs Representatives-) from the moment the goods leave for the EU.

“Through this think tank, CONEX is involved in all projects related to the facilitation of international data exchanges. At the heart of analyses, new technologies such as blockchain and AI, hold a prominent place to which CONEX brings its know-how. The realisation of these joint projects and the resulting solutions serve economic players engaged in global trade” explains Bertrand Gruson CEO of Conex.

ICS2, one of the key topics of the 2024 edition of the PAA conference

ICS2 is a European IT system created to collect data on all goods entering the EU prior to their arrival. Economic operators (EO) must declare data relating to safety and security to the ICS2 system, by way of the entry summary declaration (ENS).

In 2024, ICS2 extends its scope to maritime transport and from 2025 its coverage will be total with the inclusion of road and rail transport. All modes of transport entering the EU will thus be concerned by ICS2.

Invited as keynote speakers on the subject, FIATA (International Federation of Freight Forwarder Associations), GSF (Global Shippers Forum) and TLF (Union of French Transport and Logistics Companies speaking on behalf of CLECAT, European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and Customs Services) were able to share their thoughts and valuable analysis, particularly in terms of the recent joint FIATA-GSF publication of the ICS2 Guidance Note for freight forwarders and shippers.

“Organising the delegation’s conference in Paris in 2024, in this Olympic year, is a wonderful opportunity. It is a great honour for CONEX, 3 years after our membership began, to be the reference host on European soil for all our Alliance partners,” explains Bertrand Gruson.

About PAA

The PAA - Pan Asian E-commerce Alliance - consists of twenty members representing international trade platforms involved in import/export formalities and their digitalisation, in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Senegal, the Middle East and Europe. Created in 2000, the alliance continues to expand.
It brings together the key players in international trade from each country; in Asia, they serve 350,000 organisations, almost all of the commercial companies active in the area. Together, they process several hundred million customs declarations annually. Their discussions and work aim to promote and provide secure, reliable and value-added IT infrastructure and equipment for efficient global trade and logistics.

For more information: https://paa.net/

About ICS2

The European Union makes the security of its citizens and the single market a top priority. Every year, trillions of euros worth of goods are imported into the EU. Today the 27 members of the EU represent around 15% of global trade in goods. This new system for the declaration of advance information on goods entering the EU supports the implementation of the European Union Customs Code and the customs risk management program aimed at better protecting the single market and citizens of the EU.

About CONEX

Partner of economic operators in all sectors of activity, CONEX develops and markets a range of collaborative tools for the management of customs and security declarations. Its clients, importing/exporting companies, transporters, RDEs (Registered Customs Representatives), use its solutions and services to optimise and secure the entry, processing and electronic exchange of declarations for all their international exchanges of goods. CONEX has been participating in developments in international trade and the supply chain for nearly 40 years, supporting companies in their customs development, and collaborating with European and international customs administrations.
CONEX, whose historic headquarters is located near Lille (Orchies), has offices in Paris, and subsidiaries in Belgium, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Created in 1985, CONEX has around sixty employees.

To learn more : www.conex.net

Agence C3M : Michelle Amiard, michelle@agence-c3M.com

Bolloré Transport & Logistics adopts Conex’s ZEN solution and transforms its working relationship with its customers

At Bolloré Transport & Logistics, 275 metropolitan declarants are employed to process customs and security declarations. Little by little, the increase in administrative processing brought about by Brexit has prompted customer collaboration work to be further digitalised: the exchange of information is now organised around a documentary platform which receives and stores all the information exchanged, makes it possible to visualise processing progress, gives alerts in the event of hot spots, and produces periodic reports.

Towards a complete digitalisation of shared work

On post-Brexit 1^st January 2021, the Bolloré Logistics Customs department suggested that its customer NESTLE work on the Conex ZEN platform. This secure digital workspace receives, centralises and archives documents and correspondence between the registered customs representative-freight forwarder and its customers, making it possible to optimise the completion of customs formalities for import / export operations. ZEN via conex™, which organises exchanges in a methodical way, quickly proved its worth and other Bolloré customers followed suit and joined forces with the collaboration tool…

“The Nestlé Group was the first customer to switch to this new work organisation, first, 10 declarants used it for the exchanges with their correspondents in 7 or 8 factories. Today, 30 declarants are connected to the tool for 6 customers and the movement is speeding up, with 100 declarants and about 15 customers planned to make the move in the short term. In the deployment stage, 2 hours are enough to train new users,” explains Jean-François Ledun, Customs Director at Bolloré Logistics.

Greater processing visibility and speed

ZEN via conex™ offers users a timesaving, collaborative workspace. Through an IT link, ZEN automatically assigns data to the corresponding declaration fields in CUSTOMS via conex™, the customs declaration software. The mandatory documents are thus progressively pre-filled, the only human intervention being for the purposes of verification.

ZEN provides traceability of exchanges between Bolloré and its customers at this pre-declaration stage. The customer gradually uploads the necessary documents to the declarants, ZEN intelligently organises all the data flows while the customer can follow closely throughout the life of the declarative file. An alert notifies the declarant concerned of any action on the platform, and he/she can then access the transmitted documents. The exchanges in the pre-declaration phase are tracked and the platform centralises documents and information which in the past arrived via a variety of methods such as email, telephone, drive etc, depending on each person’s habits.

Jean-François Ledun explains: “We know, file by file, where we are at any given moment, thanks to a condensed overview; if data is missing to clear an entry, we see it immediately and can take care of it as a priority.”

When the declarant sends the declaration to the customs administration, the processing workflow is tracked, and the customer and the declarant are kept informed of progress in real time.

Report templates are customisable according to customer criteria, so no more wasted time searching for data to compile reports. Performance indicators, such as the average processing time per declaration, are calculated automatically, and financial management data are summarised (amounts of customs duties, VAT, etc.).

“As a registered customs representative, and therefore a service provider, we must periodically provide reports to our customers. In some cases, it could take man-days to compile the information and present the renderings to the customer; with ZEN, creating reports is made easy, with preformatted templates,” emphasises Jean-François Ledun.

Finally, document and declaration archiving in ZEN via conex™ is another advantage: it is operated at the request of a customer for up to 10 years for all declarations and documents. The opposability of the archiving is reinforced by the use of Blockchain technology which will certify and timestamp each document and action making up the file.

About ZEN via conex™: ZEN via conex™ is a collaborative platform for exchanging, centralising, tracking and archiving data, documents and electronic messages. The customer can thus log all the movement of entries throughout the import/export process, from the pre-declarative phase right through to filing. Multiple actors – customers, partners, collaborators, importers, exporters, carriers … -, intervene in turn to enrich the declaration, in a collaborative workflow.

About Bolloré Transport & Logistics

Bolloré Transport & Logistics is a major international transport and logistics operator with 35,000 employees in 109 countries on five continents. A specialist in multimodal transport, the group operates through four businesses: Bolloré Ports, Bolloré Logistics, Bolloré Energy and Bolloré Railways.

For more information: https://www.bollore-transport-logistics.com

About Conex

Partner to large corporations and SMEs in all sectors of activity, CONEX develops and markets a range of collaborative tools for the management of customs and security declarations. Its customers, importing/exporting companies, carriers, RDE (Registered Customs Representatives), use its solutions and services to optimise and secure the entry, processing and electronic exchange of declarations for all their international trade in goods.

CONEX has been involved for nearly 40 years in developments in international trade and the supply chain, supporting economic operators in their customs operations, and collaborating with European and international customs administrations.

CONEX, whose historic headquarters are located near Lille (Orchies), has offices in Paris, and two subsidiaries in Belgium and the United Kingdom. An independent SME, created in 1985, CONEX has around sixty employees.

CONTACT PRESS
AGENCE C3M - Michelle Amiard - michelle@agence-c3m.com