UN praises local attempts to promote e-commerce

The Egyptian market is currently conducting trials to promote e-commerce in order to compete with international markets, a UN report said yesterday.

The report, prepared by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said the local market will experience an increase in e-commerce as a result of the Egyptian World Trade Points (WTP) efforts and a marked increase in internet usage.

Another study, prepared by the Arab Academy for Banking Sciences, said the volume of world e-commerce by the end of 2001 was $1.2 trillion. It is expected to represent between 10 to 25 per cent of total world trade by the end of this year, the study, estimated.

"The increase in the number of internet users has helped a lot to increase e-commerce, through the launch of the free Internet service and the developing performance of the WTP," Minister of Foreign Trade Youssef Boutros Ghali said.

He added that the WTP play a vital role in adopting the latest technology in trade dealings under UNCTAD guidelines.

The WTP are currently applying new strategies to boosting e-commerce in co-operation with specialised banks and 30 companies in 6th of October City, said First Undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Trade Moustaf el-Sayed.

The first phase of the new strategy will run for six months, he said.