At this time, the paper document represents the transfer of ownership of the goods, so in a sense, "the paper document is foreign exchange." The increase in global trade volume has brought about a surge in the number of various trade documents and documents. Although the emergence of computers and other office automation equipment can reduce the labor intensity of manual processing of paper documents to a certain extent, because various types of computers are not fully compatible, it actually increases the demand for paper. American Forest and Paper The association once made statistics and came up with the law of rapid growth of paper consumption: for every US$1 billion increase in annual gross national product, paper consumption will increase by 80,000 tons. Here, a considerable part of the data in various commercial trade documents appears repeatedly and needs to be entered repeatedly. Some people have also made statistics on this. On average, 70% of computer input comes from the output of another computer, and repeated input also increases the probability of errors. According to statistics from a large distribution center in the United States, 5% of documents contain mistake. At the same time, repeated entry wastes manpower, wastes time, and reduces efficiency. Therefore, paper trade documents have become a prominent factor hindering the development of trade. In addition, market competition has also emerged with new characteristics. The proportion of price factors in competition is gradually decreasing, while the proportion of service factors is increasing. In order to reduce risks, sellers require small batches, multiple varieties, and fast delivery to adapt to the ever-changing market conditions. In the entire trade chain, the vast majority of companies are both suppliers and sellers. Therefore, improving the delivery and processing speed of commercial documents has become the common demand of all members of the trade chain. Similarly, the widespread popularization and application of modern computers and the continuous improvement of functions have enabled computer applications to move from stand-alone applications to system applications; at the same time, the improvement of communication conditions and technology, and the popularization of networks have provided a solid foundation for the application of EDI. It is against this background that EDI, which is based on computer applications, communication networks and data standardization, emerged as the times require. EDI has shown strong vitality since its emergence and has been widely used in major industrialized countries and regions in the world. As the Hong Kong TRADELINK Company’s promotional materials point out: “When EDI was first adopted in the United States in the late 1960s, it was only one of the ways of doing business at that time; today, not only the United States and most European countries, but also More and more countries in the Asia-Pacific region have recognized EDI as the only way to do business." Because EDI has high-speed, accurate, remote and massive technical capabilities, the rise of EDI marks the beginning of a new, global business revolution. Foreign experts profoundly pointed out: "Whether the EDI plan can be developed and promoted will determine the rise and fall of foreign trade. If you follow the trend of world trade and actively promote EDI, you will become a dragon and take off, otherwise you will become a dinosaur and become extinct." . In the late 1960s, Europe and the United States proposed the concept of EDI almost simultaneously. Early EDI was only completed between two business partners, relying on direct computer-to-computer communication. In the 1970s, the development of digital communication technology greatly accelerated the maturity of EDI technology and the expansion of its application scope, and also led to the emergence of cross-industry EDI systems. The internationalization of EDI standards in the 1980s brought the application of EDI to a new milestone. Today, EDI has gone through the embryonic stage and the development stage and has entered the mature stage.