Economic Reporter :
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Monday launched a new initiative to help developing countries grasp the global e-commerce market.
The size of the e-commerce market has been growing fast, which was valued at around $22.1 trillion in 2015, up 38 per cent from 2013, UNCTAD said, adding that the developing countries should seize the rapidly growing opportunity of e-commerce or risk falling quickly behind.
The new initiative, called “eTrade for All”, brings international organisations, donors and businesses under one umbrella, easing developing country access to cutting-edge technical assistance and giving donors more options for funding, UNCTAD said in a press release on Monday.
With strong involvement by the private sector – through a new Private Sector Advisory Council – and with financial contributions from the governments of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Sweden, Finland and the Republic of Korea, the eTrade for All initiative will support developing countries which express an interest in boosting their online commerce.
The initiative will help developing countries in seven policy areas, including e-commerce assessments, information and communications technology infrastructure, payments, trade logistics, legal and regulatory frameworks, skills development and financing for e-commerce.
By providing new opportunities and new markets, online commerce can help generate economic opportunities, including jobs, UNCATD said, but pointing out that developing countries are lagging far behind the developed world in taking the vast scope of new generation trade opportunities.
E-commerce includes both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C), respectively valued at around $19.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion each, according to the new UNCTAD data. This trade is mostly domestic, but is becoming more and more international.
According to UN organisation, while more than 70 per cent of people are shopping online in Denmark, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, the story is different in most developing countries as only 2.0 percent or less of the population buy online in Bangladesh, Ghana and Indonesia.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Monday launched a new initiative to help developing countries grasp the global e-commerce market.
The size of the e-commerce market has been growing fast, which was valued at around $22.1 trillion in 2015, up 38 per cent from 2013, UNCTAD said, adding that the developing countries should seize the rapidly growing opportunity of e-commerce or risk falling quickly behind.
The new initiative, called “eTrade for All”, brings international organisations, donors and businesses under one umbrella, easing developing country access to cutting-edge technical assistance and giving donors more options for funding, UNCTAD said in a press release on Monday.
With strong involvement by the private sector – through a new Private Sector Advisory Council – and with financial contributions from the governments of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Sweden, Finland and the Republic of Korea, the eTrade for All initiative will support developing countries which express an interest in boosting their online commerce.
The initiative will help developing countries in seven policy areas, including e-commerce assessments, information and communications technology infrastructure, payments, trade logistics, legal and regulatory frameworks, skills development and financing for e-commerce.
By providing new opportunities and new markets, online commerce can help generate economic opportunities, including jobs, UNCATD said, but pointing out that developing countries are lagging far behind the developed world in taking the vast scope of new generation trade opportunities.
E-commerce includes both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C), respectively valued at around $19.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion each, according to the new UNCTAD data. This trade is mostly domestic, but is becoming more and more international.
According to UN organisation, while more than 70 per cent of people are shopping online in Denmark, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, the story is different in most developing countries as only 2.0 percent or less of the population buy online in Bangladesh, Ghana and Indonesia.
