Digital Gateway2Government (Digital G2G)

Digital Gateway 2 Government

In the Digital Gateway 2 Government project, VIL has designed community IT systems that contribute to smoother, digitized communication between companies involved in the import and export processes in the gateways on the one hand and the relevant government agencies on the other.

Status: Completed | theme: Digitisation | type: Regional

In our Flemish air and sea ports, communication between companies and public administrations such as customs, the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) and the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC) is crucial for the smooth handling of goods.

The current processes often delay in the handling of the goods flows and the error rate is relatively high. The competitive position of the Flemish gateways is therefore negatively affected. Smooth and cost-efficient flow of goods is crucial for the services from the gateways to their international customers.

At the moment, communication with public administrations is often unstructured and inefficient. In many cases, there are no IT systems available. Where these are avialable, there is a need for a well-functioning (digital) emergency procedure that prevents substantial delays in the process of declaration and release in the event of technical problems or maintenance of the IT systems.

Four use cases have been developed within the project:

-         a digital emergency system for customs systems PLDA and NCTS.

-         a verification management system that makes the border control processes of customs and FASFC transparent and increases efficiency for businesses and government.

-         an application for the write-off of permits for strategic goods in cooperation with the Strategic Goods Control Service of the Flemish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

-         automated reporting for the import and export of radioactive shipments to FANC at airport.

As most important and urgent cases for all parties, the Digital Emergency Procedure System and the Verification Management system were selected. The functional design of these systems has been elaborated in detail.

The Digital Emergency Procedure System allows companies to continue their activities almost unhindered in case  of unavailability of the customs systems. This represents a huge improvement on the current situation, in which paper procedures are used causing extra costs and loss of time.

The Verification Management System can be developed quickly and with limited investment costs and makes it possible to handle all border controls by customs and FASFC, often involving multiple parties, in an efficient and transparent manner. A clear win-win for businesses and public services.

For the use cases related to strategic goods and FANC reporting, whitepaper has been developed describing how the processes can be simplified and accelerated by digitization.

The further roll-out of this project requires the deployment of several parties. Is the commitment of the organisations of the Port Community to make this a priority together? Are enough end users willing to confirm their commitment as a future customer in advance and thus offer some comfort to future providers? And are governments committed to applying this new form of cooperation with the sector in their activities and even prioritising them in the interests of our economy and of their own functioning? If the answer to these three questions is positive, four solutions can be realized by the end of 2021 or well on the way to realization.

The first indications are already positive. There is great interest in the sector and the governments to work on digital tools based on the project results. In the meantime, this has been discussed.