On Wednesday, 7 June, the President of Turkmenistan signed a decree ordering the Agency for Transport and Communications under the Cabinet of Ministers to ensure the creation of an electronic information exchange system for the electronic consignment note of the agency “Turkmenawtoulaglary” (Turkmen Motor Transport) or e-CMR system.
This step will be a practical measure for the implementation in Turkmenistan of the Protocol Additional to the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR) concerning the Electronic Consignment Note.
What is e-CMR?
Rules for transporting goods internationally are covered by the United Nations Convention for the carriage of goods, known as the CMR (Convention relative au contrat de transport international de Marchandises par Route).
This Convention has been ratified by most European states, as well as several other countries. Goods companies, drivers and those receiving shipments use a CMR consignment note, which presents information about the shipped goods and the transporting and receiving parties. Until recently, CMR notes were only in paper form, and IRU is now advocating for a move to an electronic format.
In February 2008, a protocol was added to the CMR Convention, which requested that CMR could be managed electronically, via ‘e-CMR’. This protocol entered into force on 5 June 2011, and to date 30 countries have acceded including: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Iran, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Moldova, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.
e-CMR officially launched in January 2017 with the first ever border crossing to use electronic consignment notes between Spain and France, proving that the system works and is simple to implement and use. It is likely to prompt other countries to join – therefore increasing the potential for common benefit.
Some of the key benefits to e-CMR include:
- Handling costs can be up to three to four times less expensive
- Faster administration with reduced data entry, no paper handling, no fax/scan/letter exchanges, no paper archiving, etc.
- Faster invoicing
- Reduction of delivery and reception discrepancies
///nCa, 8 June 2023
#e-CMR, #Turkmenmotortransport, #Turkmenistan, #transport