recalling the role and importance of international standards and that : - when members from international organizations adopt international standards and harmonize their technical regulations worldwide, everybody stands to gain ; - national legislative and regulatory work is simplified and accelerated when reference can be made to internationally agreed standards ; - the vital role of international standards as the technical foundation for the global market is explicitly recognized in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade ;

recalling the role of the IEC, ISO, ITU and UNECE Memorandum of Understanding on Electronic Business and that : - coordinated standards are essential and that standards developed within the domain of each organization will be interoperable and technically consistent ; - with a view to avoiding duplication of efforts, the standardization organizations will continue their technical cooperation to secure complementary and synergetic efforts ; - there is a need to avoid confusion amongst users ;

recognizing the need for a single global business semantics repository for the development of e-business applications ;

recognizing the role of ISO 7372 and recalling ISO/TC 154 Resolutions 189 and 190 (see above) on a possible revision of ISO 7372 in cooperation with relevant bodies ;

acknowledging the work done by the UN/EDIFACT Working group (EWG) since 1993 and other works, such as the WCO/G 7 Customs Harmonization Initiative based on ISO 7372:1993 ; and

recognizing that ISO 7372 should be inclusive of the various sectors resulting in a common set of basic semantic elements and resolving the harmonization of the semantics when required ;