(EID-040) “REVIVING E-COMMERCE”

It has been almost eight years since the signing of the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000 (ECA), but as of now, we could not even say that e-commerce has taken off in this country.

I recall that the ECA was supposed to be the “mother law” only, meaning that we were eventually supposed to produce “daughter laws” to support it, but nothing else really followed it.

Perhaps we could say that to some extent, mobile commerce or m-commerce has taken off, appearing to be a saving grace. At least, mobile commerce has put in place online payment systems that have sadly been very weak on the e-commerce side.

To some extent, we could say that the slow emergence of e-commerce in this country is largely due to the small percentage of credit card ownership. This problem has been partially solved in other countries due to the entry of debit cards and alternative payment systems, but these two solutions have also been slow in coming to our country.

Fortunately for us, the price of hosting websites has gone down considerably, so much so that anyone could now afford to have a site, for any purpose. To make the best use of this opportunity however, it would be good if users would put up real e-commerce sites, and not just any site.

What essentially makes an e-commerce site is a shopping cart that is coupled with a payment system. This is the other good news that the price of this software in tandem has also gone down, for the benefit of everyone. The United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA) has recently acquired this tandem, and will start offering it to all interested schools.

Introducing this software set to the schools is part of the strategy to revive e-commerce in this country, along with the hope that we will be able to raise up a new generation of online entrepreneurs among our youth. The software set will come with an e-commerce course that will be offered to all students.

E-commerce is part of the knowledge economy, also known as the services economy. As I see it, it is to our advantage to strengthen all our three economies, namely our agriculture economy, our industrial economy and our knowledge economy. We must win in all three global arenas in order to survive as a people. Actually not just to survive, but to excel and win in the global competition.