Recommendation N 7.

 

    NUMERICAL REPRESENTATION OF DATES, TIME AND PERIODS OF TIME

                    (Geneva, October 1988)

                               

            second edition, adopted by the Working Party

         on Facilitation of International Trade Procedures,

           

 

                                 

The  Group  of  Experts on Automatic Data Processing and  Coding,  a

subsidiary   organ   of  the  Working  Party  on   Facilitation   of

International  Trade  Procedures, set up by the Economic  Commission

for  Europe, agreed at its eighth session in October 1974  to  study

the  question  of  the numerical representation of dates,  time  and

periods of time for information interchange with a view to preparing

a  draft  recommendation on this subject. At its  ninth,  tenth  and

eleventh sessions, the Group of Experts considered proposals  for  a

draft  Recommendation which was forwarded to the Working  Party  for

adoption.

 

A  first  edition of the Recommendation was adopted by this  Working

Party at its fourth session in September 1975. A number of the  then

existing  international  standards adopted  in  this  field  by  the

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) were used as  a

basis for the Recommendation.

 

The   present  version  of  the  Recommendation  on  the   numerical

representation  of  dates, time and periods  of  time  was  prepared

pursuant to the development of a new International Standard ISO-8601

(which  cancels and replaces International Standards ISO-2014,  ISO-

2015,  ISO-2711,  ISO-3307 and ISO-4301, of which it  constitutes  a

technical  revision)  and was adopted by the Working  Party  at  its

twenty-eighth session in September 1988.

 

                           Recommendation

                                  

The Working Party on Facilitation of International Trade Procedures,

 

Recommends that participants in international trade, Governments and

international organizations accept and use, and promote the  general

acceptance of the method set out hereafter of expressing dates, time

and  periods  of  time,  whenever these  data  are  to  be  used  in

international trade.

 

At  the  twenty-eight  session of the Working Party  representatives

attended  from:  Austria; Belgium; Canada; Czechoslovakia;  Denmark;

Finland;  France;  German  Democratic  Republic;  Germany,   Federal

Republic  of; Hungary; Italy; Netherlands ; Norway; Poland; Romania;

Spain;  Sweden;  Switzerland;  Turkey;  Union  of  Soviet  Socialist

Republics;  United  Kingdom of Great Britain and  Northern  Ireland;

United States of America.

 

The  following  intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental

organizations  were also represented: United Nations  Conference  on

Trade  and Development (UNCTAD); European Economic Community  (EEC);

Customs   Co-operation  Council  (CCC);  International  Chamber   of

Commerce   (ICC);  International  Organization  for  Standardization

(ISO); International Air Transport Association (IATA); International

Association of Ports and Harbours (IAPH); International  Chamber  of

Shipping  (ICS);  International Civil Airports  Association  (ICAA);

International   Data  Exchange  Association  (IDEA);   International

Railway  Transport  Committee  (CIT); International  Road  Transport

Union   (IRU);   International  Federation  of  Freight   Forwarders

Associations (FIATA); and International Union of Railways (UIC).

 

Also   present  at  the  invitation  of  the  secretariat   were   a

representative  of  the European Free Trade Association  (EFTA)  and

representatives  from  the Korean Committee  for  Simplification  of

International  Trade Procedures (with headquarters  located  in  the

Republic of Korea).

 

                           I. Background

                                 

1.  Information  on  dates and periods of time  is  needed  in  most

documents  used in international trade. However, varying methods  of

expressing  these data elements have led to confusion and  sometimes

resulted   in   legal  disputes,  particularly  when   all-numerical

representations  have  been used (e.g. in  North  America  1.12.1988

means 12 January 1988 whereas in Europe the same figures indicated 1

December 1988.

 

2.  Although some of these difficulties can be overcome by  spelling

out the name of the month, an all numerical character representation

of these data elements would greatly reduce the difficulties arising

from  differences  in languages and alphabets and  would  facilitate

abbreviation and coding.

 

3.  By 1975, the International Organization for Standarization (ISO)

had  adopted a number of standards in this field, including ISO-2014

"writing of Calendar Dates in All-Numeric Form", ISO-2015 "Numbering

of  weeks", ISO-2711 "Representation of Ordinal Dates" and  ISO-3307

"Information  interchange - Representations of  time  of  the  day",

which  were  considered  suitable as a basis  for  a  Recommendation

relevant to the requirements in international trade.

 

4.  In  September  1975 the first version of the Recommendation  was

adopted by the Working Party on Facilitation of International  Trade

Procedures at its fourth session.

 

5.  In 1978 ISO adopted in this field another International Standard

ISO-4031  "Information interchange - Representation  of  local  time

differentials."

 

6.  Finally in 1988 ISO adopted a new International Standard ISO-8601

"Data  elements and interchange formats - Information interchange  -

Representation  of  dates and times" which constitutes  a  technical

revision  and  merger  which  cancels  and  replaces  the  standards

previously issued in this field and mentioned above.

 

7.  Through its secretariat the Working Party took an active part in

the  preparation of International Standard ISO-8601.  Following  its

adoption by ISO the Working Party agreed that a new, second  edition

of the Recommendation should be prepared to ensure its compatibility

with the new standard.

 

                 II. Scope and Field of Application

                                 

8.  This Recommendation establishes a method for a standardized  and

unambiguous all-numerical designation of a given date, a given  time

of the day and a given period of time. It applies in all cases where

these  data are presented as separate entries in numerical form  but

not when they are part of a plain language text.

 

                        III. Recommendations

                                 

                           Calendar date

                                 

9.  Numerical  representation of year, month and day  in  descending

order,  separated when required by hyphen, and with the  possibility

of omitting indication of century if not needed.

 

Example: 10 May 1994

                                                         1994-05-10

                                                         19940510

                                                         94-05-10

                                                         940510

                                 

                            Ordinal date

                                 

10.  Numerical  representation  of year  and  date,  with  the  date

expressed by its original number counted from 1 January (001) to  31

December (365 or 366).

 

Example: 10 May 1994                                     994130

 

                          Time of the day

                                  

11.  Numerical  representation of hour and minute  with  a  constant

length of four digits. When combined with a date, the character  "T"

should be used as a designator to start the time representation.  By

mutual  agreement  of  the partners in information  interchange  the

character "T" may be omitted in applications where there is no  risk

of  confusing  with other representations in this  Recommendation  a

combined representation of date and time.

 

Example: Ten o'clock 10 May 1994                     19940510T1000

                                                     1994-05-10T1000

                                                     199405101000

                                                

                 Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC)

                                 

12.  To  express the time of the day in Co-ordinated Universal  Time

(formerly   known   as  Greenwich  Mean  Time)  the  representations

specified  above should be used, followed immediately  by  the  time

designator  "Z".  Differences between UTC and local  time  shall  be

indicated  by appending the time differnce in hours and minutes,  or

hours only, with a leading "+" or "-" sign, as the case may be.

 

Example: 20 minutes and 30 seconds past 23 hours              32030Z

 

Example: 27 minutes and 46 seconds past 15 hours locally in

Geneva and in New York indicated in respect of UTC.

 

                                                152746+0100 (or +01)

                                                152746-0500 (or -05)

                                                                   

                                Week

                                 

13.  Numerical  representation of a period of seven  calendar  days,

starting  with  Monday and numbered from 01 to 53,  with  number  01

assigned to the first week containing at least four days of the  new

year,  and  preceded by the letter "W" if needed in order  to  avoid

misunderstanding.

 

Example: The week 11-17 April 1994                         1994 W 15

                                                              199415

                                                          

                       Other periods of time

                                 

14.  Numerical representations of the dates and times indicating