CEFACT
UN Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business. The UN body that maintains EDIFACT, UN/LOCODE, the CCL and co-publishes UBL with OASIS.
Definition
UN/CEFACT is a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), based in Geneva. Its mandate: "to serve as a trade facilitation and electronic business institution, open to all member countries" (resolution ECE/TRADE/C/CEFACT/2016/14).
UN/CEFACT produces:
- EDIFACT — the EDI syntax standard, updated twice a year in directives D.YYA and D.YYB (since 1987).
- UNTDID — UN Trade Data Interchange Directory, the repository that aggregates messages, segments, elements, codes and UNCL lists.
- UN/LOCODE — the 5-letter code for trade and transport locations (over 110,000 codes maintained).
- CCL — Core Component Library, a reusable semantic model for XML/UBL/CII.
- Recommendations and standards — for example R.4 (National Trade Facilitation Bodies), R.34 (Single Window), R.40 (consultative approach), R.41 (cross-border trade).
- CII — Cross Industry Invoice, the XML invoice format used by Factur-X in France.
Origin
UN/CEFACT originated in the Working Party on Facilitation of International Trade Procedures (WP.4), created in 1960 by UNECE. WP.4 published the first versions of TDED (Trade Data Element Directory) and gave birth to EDIFACT in 1986. In 1996, WP.4 was restructured and became CEFACT; in 2002 it became UN/CEFACT with its current mandate. The centre operates through annual plenary sessions and Programme Development Areas (PDAs) that carry the technical workstreams.
Example in context
The D.96A directive consumed everywhere in European grocery distribution is published by UN/CEFACT. Each EDIFACT message, each segment, each UNCL code list — for example UNCL 1001 (Document Name Code), UNCL 3035 (Party Qualifier) or UNCL 4451 (Text Subject Qualifier) — is referenced in the UNTDID, of which UN/CEFACT is the sole editorial authority.