Wednesday 4th July, 2012

In a possible expansion of the reach and ease of cross border e-procurement, Russia has expressed an interest in integrating their existing Association of eTrading Platforms (AETP) with that of PEPPOL to effectively provide a "fourth corner" to the PEPPOL project.

At the moment Russia has several trading platforms which go into the formation of the AETP, with the ultimate aim of having a successful single space which allows for the combination of effort across all electronic trading systems, making it easier, faster and acceptable across different legislative environments. Mandated in a similar way to the Norwegian system since January 2011, all contracting authorities must use the platform when trading with specific goods.

Iliya Dimotrov, Board member of AETP says:

“This cooperation is an effective tool that will bring communication between our suppliers to the next level. However, in order to reach this goal we need to take several steps and we hope that our international partners are also interested in our cooperation.  We are proud to be involved in the PEPPOL experience. At the same time, Russia has developed many things recently at different levels: state, local, municipal. We think that the integration is good but it should include the best developments from your side and our side.”

The interest in the PEPPOL project originates from a similarity between the two projects. “The two different initiatives may be able to leverage on each other, being part of large economies in transition to eProcurement. If a system for interoperability within the EEC is to be developed, there is a future possibility that this interoperable system could also encompass PEPPOL.” – says Vladimir Savchenko (Eurasian Economic Commission).

Better procurement opportunities are likely to be one of the benefits in the future owing to increased competition across the trading platform. Although there are some difficult technical implementation issues, savings from the increased competition are likely to counter this.

Summing up, Savchenko said; “I think in near future with help of projects like PEPPOL we can build one big government procurement market, in which everyone involved in the procurement process can benefit from rising competiveness.”