EU4Digital launches eTrade pilot for cross-border invoicing between Armenia and Ukraine

From today, selected companies from Armenia and Ukraine are starting to exchange standardised invoice data via the eDelivery channel as part of a pilot project implemented by the EU4Digital Facility. This pilot is a stepping stone to ensuring the secure, reliable, affordable and effective exchange of cross-border invoice data between Eastern partner countries and with the EU. 

How will pilot work? 

During the pilot, participating cross-border partners from Armenia and Ukraine will exchange standardised invoice data via the eDelivery channel, at the same time as issuing invoices in a regular manner. In order to establish a set of common business processes and technical standards, and to ensure the smooth exchange of invoice data, the Peppol eDelivery Network will be used.  The Peppol eDelivery Network allows its members to exchange electronic data with any other network member. Peppol is in use in 30 countries in Europe, plus Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and the USA.

Participating companies and Access Point service providers

The following companies were selected for the pilot:

• Vedi-Alco – one of the leading producers of alcoholic drinks in Armenia, with export routes to Europe, Russia, the USA and many other countries, including Ukraine.
• Alkoline – is a rapidly growing company, which is one of the five leading producers and distributors of natural alcoholic beverages in Ukraine and beyond. One of its business partners is Armenia.

EDIN – one of the biggest electronic data interchange service (EDI) providers in Ukraine – has also continued its active involvement and support for the pilot. 

With the support of EU4Digital, the first eDelivery Access Point was established in Ukraine during the previous pilot between Ukraine and Poland. Accordingly, the State Enterprise “DIIA”, which became the official owner of an Access Point, continues to participate in the pilot with Armenia, further enhancing its own knowledge and technical capabilities to exchange standardised invoice data via eDelivery.

On the Armenian side, the EU4Digital Facility has supported the establishment of the very first Peppol eDelivery Access Point, which will be maintained and managed by the e-Governance infrastructure implementation agency – EKENG.

Further promotion of eDelivery pilot results

The success of the eDelivery pilot between Ukraine and Poland, as well as continuous involvement and strong interest for eDelivery solution reuse in the pilot countries, sets the basis for the continuity and sustainability of the pilot results. 

Currently, the exchange of paper-based invoices with cross-border partners can take up to 10 working days, whereas via eDelivery it takes seconds. Understanding the importance of further developments and adoption of eDelivery in the country, the Ministry together with EU4Digital organised a virtual webinar that aimed to reflect on eDelivery pilot results with Ukraine, and to discuss the opportunities and barriers for the exchange of electronic invoices on a cross-border level. You can read more about it here. 

Next steps

After the completion of the pilot, the EU4Digital team will provide further recommendations in regard to the required legal, organisational and technical changes in order to adopt the piloted solution in production as well as scale-up in other Eastern partner countries.If you are interest to learn more about eDelivery and to know why it matters for the Eastern Partner countries and European Union, please read more here.