On February 20, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (CPTA) comes into force. The agreement aims to promote cross-border paperless trade by enabling the exchange and mutual recognition of trade-related data and documents in electronic form and facilitating interoperability among national and subregional single windows or other paperless trade systems. Over 30 countries were involved in finalising the treaty text, which has since been ratified by Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, Iran and the Philippines, and signed by Armenia and Cambodia. Yann Duval, chief of the trade policy and facilitation section at UNESCAP, explains to