Bradford Chamber of Commerce has been at the forefront of revolutionising the way thousands of British firms do business abroad with huge savings in time and money.

And it is likely Bradford's influence will lead to changes all across Europe.

A task force from the chamber has spearheaded the use of e-Cert, an online automated certification process for export documents.

The chamber's international manager Tim Bailey saw the opportunities for electronic documentation more than two years ago and convinced the Bradford chamber that it could help pioneer the service to other chambers at home and abroad.

Mr Bailey and Nikki Cunningham, also from the Bradford Chamber, will unveil the latest version of the e-Cert system at a national gathering of more than 100 chamber officials in Coventry later this month.

"Bradford will be giving a demonstration of e-Cert," said Mr Bailey. "A lot of the chambers haven't been very quick to embrace this. We want to try and improve the take-up of e-Cert and at the same time we want more Bradford exporters to register."

Bradford, which also runs the service for the Leeds, York and North Yorkshire chambers, has already signed up about 150 companies.

The new system means exporters don't physically have to pick up paper forms from the chamber but can access all the necessary documents online, saving time and money.

Mr Bailey said the new version of the system would contain not only certificates of origin and invoices but "a whole suite of documents" needed by exporters.

"One of the things we've done for the British Chambers of Commerce is to produce a guide called Getting To Grips With e-Cert," added Mr Bailey.

And he revealed that not only has the Bradford chamber blazed a trail in the UK but has also been instrumental in introducing e-Cert to chambers all across Europe.

"This is a new dawn," he added. "It's all about e-Cert coming of age. We've had direct input into shaping a product through chamber workshops. A lot of things about this product have the Bradford hallmark."

e-mail: tim.wyatt@bradford.newsquest.co.uk