The Ministry of Commerce to Frame a Policy on E-commerce

In the light of the economic survey of Pakistan for the year 2017/2018, it has been identified that Pakistan needs to have a defined policy and plan for the development of E-commerce. Since Electronic Commerce is supposed to contribute significantly to the economy of any country, Pakistan still lacks in the said area. Despite the growing trend of online shopping that we otherwise witness around in the country, the statistics are still low on e-commerce. This is probably due to the low measurement levels or an inability to trace a huge chunk of transactions. This means that there is probably a chunk of trade that takes place electronically that is probably not reflected in the economic figures of the country at large.

The Ministry of Commerce, from this observation and identification, has therefore concluded that there needs to be a formal policy defined and a specified procedure to reflect all online transactions in the trade and economic figures and statistics of the country. No transaction that takes place should go unreported or untraceable.

For this purpose, a framework is being developed for the policy definition. This framework is to include payment procedures and laws, regulatory regimes, consumer laws in e-commerce, infrastructure for online payment transactions, infrastructure for international online orders and payments, currency exchange rates, management of logistics, issues of taxation and several other aspects that are associated with online trade and commerce. Identification and differentiation between Business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) trade that takes place over the internetare also to be made.

The Ministry of Commerce is of the opinion that electronic commerce is one of the pillars of trade and commerce of any country. Therefore, they need to invest some time and effort to formalize and legalize the procedure through which online transactions take place. It also opens up international trade opportunities with other countries. It has also been identified that e-commerce not only is experiencing accelerated growth all over the world but is also a great source of saving costs. Therefore, digitalization of the marketplaces is a trend that Pakistan needs to keep up with, along with the first world countries.

The job market is also expected to be expanded by the finalization of this policy development process. New hiring will be required across the markets when the wave of digitization takes over. Web Developers, digital marketing experts, content writers and designers will all be needed to efficiently and smoothly serve the industry. Thus, the development of this policy can potentially prove to be beneficial at so many levels in Pakistan.