Russia, Belgium Sign Deal on Digital Export Certs

RAPAPORT… Russia and Belgium have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) calling for the digital exchange of information that appears on Kimberley Process (KP) certificates.

The creation of electronic export documentation has been one of Russia’s priorities this year as chair of the KP. The signing of the agreement took place earlier this month on the sidelines of the annual KP plenary, which ran in Moscow and in an online format.

At present, the standard export certificates are paper documents requiring physical signatures. Russia and Belgium will continue to use these for now, as there is no universal platform for verifying digital certificates, but will also share the certificate information in a digital way.

“We can confidently say that Russia kicked off the digitalization process at the KP with [a] consensus in principle that this is the future of the certification scheme,” Alexey Moiseev, Russia’s deputy finance minister and 2021 KP chair, said last week in a statement to Rapaport News. “Now, as usual, the devil is in the detail, and to make a long journey one must make the first step.”

Participants in the plenary agreed to establish a subgroup dedicated to the digitalization of certificates, Moiseev added. During the year, Russia also conducted pilot exchanges of KP certificate information with Belarus, and held discussions on the topic with India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), he said.


Image: Alexey Moiseev at the Kimberley Process plenary. (Russian Ministry of Finance)