South Africa establishes an electronic system for phytosanitary certificate issuance South Africa developed an electronic system for export certification (eCertification). The issuance of ePhytos started on 1 November 2019. The eCertification system further required introduction of new template of the paper based phytosanitary certificate. Trading partners that have ability to receive ePhytos that South Africa will be delivering, may receive them via the IPPC hub in an XML format or direct (where bilaterally agreed). This is phase 1 of the migration to the new phytosanitary certificate template and ePhyto, which started with grapes in November 2019 and will be followed by Citrus in March 2020 and the rest of plant commodities in April 2020. Members are advised to take note that currently there are two phytosanitary certificate templates in circulation until end of March 2020. The following are features for the new phytosanitary certificate template for South Africa: - The paper format has additional security features embedded in the document that can be viewed under ultra violet light;
- The paper format has two numbers:
- one at the top right-hand corner: a barcode which is the document number;
- a second barcode and QR code as an added security feature. The phytosanitary certificate number appears between the QR and the barcode. This is the number to be used on any communication in relation to issued phytosanitary certificate. The new phytosanitary certificate number starts with "NPPO-ZA/yyyy/mm/number";
The ephyto will only contain the new phytosanitary certificate number. Products covered: Table grapes HS Codes: 080610 Proposed date of adoption: 1 November 2019 Proposed date of entry into force: 1 November 2019 Final date for comments: 11 January 2020 | 
.gif)
