A gazette notification has given Sri Lanka’s national trade platform, known as “One TRADE”, formal legal standing, meaning documents filed through it will be treated the same as paper originals.
The notification was issued by the Minister of Digital Economy, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, under the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006, NewsFirst reported.
One TRADE is the country’s National Single Window electronic information system. It allows importers, exporters and trade regulatory bodies to exchange documents and data through a single digital portal rather than filing the same information separately with each agency. The system is operated by GovTech Sri Lanka (Pvt) Ltd.
What the gazette changes
The central effect is evidentiary. Electronic records submitted through the system will hold full legal validity and effect equal to that of traditional paper documents — the step that allows regulators to accept a digital submission as the original rather than as a copy supporting a paper file.
The orders apply to transactions involving the import, export or online transit of trade goods.
Phased by product
Rather than switching on across all trade at once, the framework is to be implemented for specific products and goods controlled by individual trade regulatory bodies, with the Sri Lanka Tea Board named among those agencies.
The report does not give an implementation deadline, list the other regulatory bodies covered, or say which products follow the first tranche. It does not state the gazette number or its date of operation, and does not say what happens to paper filings already in process.
A single-window system is intended to cut the duplication that arises when customs, quarantine, port and product-specific regulators each demand the same consignment data separately.
