The Trade Department and Tradelink Electronic Commerce Limited (Tradelink) jointly announced today (Wednesday) a phased migration programme for the 6,250 textiles traders to shift from paper to electronic submissions of Restrained Textile Export Licence (RTEL) applications at an orderly and well-managed pace with a view to achieving full migration by January 1, 1999.

The programme has the full support of the Textiles Advisory Board (TEXTAB).

The RTEL, or Quota Licence, is a requirement for all traders exporting restrained garments and textiles to countries that impose quotas, which include Hong Kong's largest export markets in North America and the European community. Last year, some 600,000 RTEL were issued.

"Our aim is to achieve the migration to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in an orderly and well-managed manner avoiding a last minute rush when full migration is implemented in January 1, 1999," said Assistant Director-General of Trade, Mr Edward Yau.

"This will be the first statutory trade document in Hong Kong to move entirely from paper to EDI processing, so we are keen to a smooth transition.

"The Government is strongly committed to encouraging the use of EDI because it will help the Hong Kong business community to improve its efficiency and productivity, and maintain its competitiveness in the world market.

"There are many benefits to traders in electronic licensing. These include longer submission hours, faster approval time, and reduced risk of error and delay."

"Moving the whole operation to electronic processing will also enable the Government to deploy its resources more efficiently," Mr Yau added.

The electronic submission facility is already being provided by Tradelink, a joint public and private sector organisation which at the same time announced a series of special initiatives to help companies make the switch as easily and affordably as possible.

For textile traders who for one reason or another not ready to make the shift, Tradelink will set up an Electronic Services Centre at Trade Department Tower in Mong Kok to which traders can bring their paper submissions for conversion of data to EDI format, Tradelink will provide this service free of charge during the migration period in 1998.

As a further incentive to encourage early migration, Tradelink has announced that it will reduce its handling charges for ordinary electronic submissions by 30 per cent between January 1 and April 30, 1998; by 20 per cent between May 1 and August 31, 1998; and by 10 per cent between September 1 and December 31, 1998. These offers will apply both to new and existing Tradelink customers.

Tradelink also announced that it is launching a 'total solution' package to new users or those who wish to upgrade their present systems. The package includes a pre-installed computer system with necessary EDI software applications at a favourable price.

"This will make moving to electronic commerce convenient and affordable to the smallest of traders," said Tradelink's Chief Executive Officer, Mr Justin Yue, "and they will find that this modest outlay is more than repaid in the efficiency benefits that electronic commerce can bring to import and export operations."

A Notice to Exporters has been issued to textile traders setting out the migration programme in four phases at intervals of four months. In brief, about 680 textile traders who are better prepared and equipped for EDI are asked to migrate to EDI submission starting January 1998. This will be followed by another 630 high volume users migrating to EDI by May 1998 and another 1,000 users by September 1998. The remaining 3,900 small volume users will be required to migrate to EDI by end-December 1998.