The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce has selected an innovative export solution from South Australian global trade software company eCertify to offer hundreds of exporters and freight forwarders automated Certificates of Origin processing.

eCertify makes the process faster, cheaper and more efficient for anyone involved in exporting and is claimed to be the clear market leader in Australia.

eCertify has opened an office in Alexandria, Virginia, to give the company easy access to the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration in Washington DC. The Department is tasked with leading the drive to double US exports in five years and support 2 million more jobs, as part of President Obama’s National Export Initiative.

eCertify President and Founder Carman Rossi explains that Certificates of Origin are mandatory to validate goods for export to most countries.

“They have been used in one form or another for more than a century, since the days when sailing ships moved goods around the globe,” Mr Rossi said.

eCertify is the first solution to eliminate the cumbersome manual processes of stamping and signing, and was endorsed by the American Chamber of Commerce Executives at the 2009 ACCE Convention in Raleigh, NC.

The new service has attracted more than 60 registrations since its launch by the LA Chamber in January, including exporters from Hawaii and San Diego as well as the Los Angeles area.

“Manual processing limited the service to exporters in close proximity,” said Mr Rossi. “Now the LA Chamber can provide services to exporters farther afield. eCertify saves courier costs, reduces turnaround time and is more efficient irrespective of the distance from the chamber.”

The LA Chamber of Commerce is the largest chamber of commerce in Southern California. It represents more than 750,000 employees in the region and strongly supports Global Trade initiatives.

“Our exporters are looking for ways to reduce time and speed up delivery,” said LA Area Chamber President and CEO Gary Toebben. “eCertify means fewer manual processes, fewer errors and speedier delivery through technology that takes minutes instead of hours and days. It gives exporters a competitive advantage.”

eCertify has been deployed globally using a web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model together with PayPal for immediate payment to streamline implementation and reduce administration time and cost.

Mr Rossi said that eCertify automates the final step for export documentation in the global supply chain.

“More than 20 US Chambers have now registered to offer eCertify to their members,” he said. “It’s a lean, green solution that reduces paper usage, costs and time to market.”

Studies conducted by eCertify show that the solution could save US exporters direct costs of $US500 million a year.