Definition: Electronic Data Interchange on COMmerce

Category: External trade

A set of measures implemented to facilitate the conversion of regional, national and Community systems towards interoperable systems at European level, as a first stage, for the collection of returns on the trading of goods between Member States from businesses, the validation and pre-processing of such returns and the dissemination of the statistics derived therefrom.

Edicom may, by agreement with the competent authorities of the Member States and bearing in mind the preferential use of existing technologies and products, comprise in particular:

- the design, development and promotion of software for the collection, validation and transmission of statistical information, and assistance to Member States in making that software available to businesses,
- the design, development and promotion of software for the acceptance, validation, processing and dissemination of data, providing assistance for, and making that software available to the regional, national and Community bodies responsible for collecting statistical information, and where necessary the upgrading of equipment,
- the design, development and promotion of formats for the exchange of information, on the basis of European and international standards, and making them available,
- the design, documentation and promotion of the methods, procedures and agreements to be used in the exchange of information,
- making software and services suppliers aware of the requirements of national and Community statistics. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31996D0715:EN:HTML