Pakistan trying to boost e-trade: Dr Tauqir

ISLAMABAD: Being acutely aware of high growth potential of e-Commerce, Pakistan is working at an accelerated pace to boost e-trade in goods and services and launched e-Commerce, which is expected to reach $1 billion here by 2020.

“Due to significantly liberal regime in our service sector specially finance and telecom, major telecom service providers are operating in Pakistan providing cutting edge connectivity and communication solutions,” Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to World Trade Organization (WTO) Dr Tauqir Shah told the global trade body, according to a message received by The News from Geneva.

During two years, he said, after auction of 3G/4G spectrum, the consumers of these services have increased from three to thirty millions. “Our broadband penetration rate is doubling every single year. Since 2013, the Global Findex report shows Pakistan as the leader in mobile banking transactions in South Asia, having 133 million mobile phone subscribers and 11% of them use mobile phones to carry out financial transactions.”

The representative said that Pakistan’s parliament was working to update the rules and regulations governing digital trade. “However, we have serious challenges hindering the progress of e-Commerce in many developing countries. Even today, 4 billion people in developing countries remain offline and the problem is particularly acute in the LDCs (least developed countries) where 850 million out of one billion people are offline. While the share of enterprise receipts from sales through electronic networks as a percentage of total turnover reached 15% in Europe in 2014, the comparable number for Africa was less than 5%.”

Dr Tauqir Shah said that Pakistan was of the view that the benefits and economic growth potential of e-commerce/digital trade should be accessible equally to all people in all countries.

“We should strive to be inclusive and non-discriminatory in our approach. We can only get positive results from this exercise if we collaborate, compromise and move together. We suggest that during our future work, members must bring ideas and positive thoughts for increasing transparency in the present and proposed regulatory disciplines; accounting for the developmental dimension of e-trade; sharing best business practices with the members who do not have adequate technical skills; and suggesting initiatives for capacity building focusing SMEs and skills for e-trade.”

In this context, the representative said, Costa Rica, Kenya and Pakistan, have agreed to creation of a collaborative group called ‘Friends of e-Commerce for Development’. “We are of the view that systematic and organized representation of developing countries and LDCs is important for our future discussions on e-commerce and digital trade. We invite like-minded members to join us in this endeavor and request all members to contribute to the discourse on e-Commerce for Development.”

He said Pakistan was not proposing leave from any of the disciplines. Rather, in the spirit of sustainable development, it is proposing greater inclusiveness and transparency in the process, capacity building, technical assistance, skills for e-Commerce, and infra-structure development, where needed.

The diplomat said it was clear that electronic commerce provides huge opportunities for growth, development and job creation. “However, we think it is equally clear that the international community should strive to ensure that these opportunities are made available to all.

He said UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade & Development) e-Commerce Readiness index for developed world is 77; Africa is 22; Developing Asia is 41; and Pakistan is 36. This has seeds of deepening the digital divide and institutionalizing it in trade too. Thus it is critical that we focus on the development dimension of e-Commerce.

Dr Tauqir Shah said there are huge challenges facing developing and transition economies in reaping the gains from e-Commerce. These challenges include poor infrastructure, inadequate logistics, low adoption rates of information and communications technology, outdated legal and regulatory frameworks, and lack of payment solutions and financing, and huge national deficit in digital skills needed for E-economy. The UNCTAD index clearly shows that the capacity and ability to engage successfully in e-Commerce varied significantly among countries.

“The e-Commerce divide was even wider than the digital divide. As the digital economy was increasingly becoming part of the real economy, digital and e-Commerce divides could readily translate into real economic divides. Unless developing countries grasped the rapidly growing opportunity of e-Commerce, they risked falling further behind. This can have a very detrimental effect in, not only impeding progress, but also increasing inequality and the gap between the rich and poor.”

Dr Tauqir Shah said Pakistan was excited on how e-Commerce can truly be used as a tool to unleash development and progress. Digital trade is an effective tool for economic empowerment of women, youth and marginalized communities. But these development gains will not materialize automatically, nor will they - left to their own devise - be distributed equitable.

“We need to address several key policy challenges in developing world as 90 to 99% of our companies and businesses are SMEs. There is a critical linkage of SMEs with e-Commerce, it gives them access to global market. In an increasingly competitive international market environment, the inclusion of these SMEs is always a challenge. Most of the SMEs do not have the volume neither the productivity required to compete at international level within the traditional way. E-Commerce can be an important tool for economic diversification, export growth, employment generation, and development of small and medium-sized enterprises. But low participation rate of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially those from the least developed countries, in the digital economy is a fact. The e-Commerce policy initiatives should have targeted support for small and medium-sized enterprises.”