An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon says work has start­ed on the draft­ing of the Na­tion­al E-Com­merce Strat­e­gy yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

This, Gopee-Scoon said, is where stake­hold­ers will pro­vide guid­ance on the over­ar­ch­ing com­po­nents of the strat­e­gy, through tar­get­ed dis­cus­sions on the vi­sion and mis­sion, as well as iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of pri­or­i­ty ar­eas of fo­cus for T&T.

The min­is­ter was speak­ing at eTrade Ready Val­i­da­tion and E-com­merce Strat­e­gy Vi­sion Work­shop at Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

She said the World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion has said the rise of the dig­i­tal econ­o­my pro­vides a range of new op­por­tu­ni­ties for small and medi­um-sized firms (SMEs) to play a more ac­tive role in glob­al val­ue chains.

Gopee-Scoon out­lined that e-com­merce and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion re­main a core area of fo­cus for the Gov­ern­ment, as a strong dri­ving force for in­no­va­tion, growth, trade, and so­cial pros­per­i­ty.

“With this in mind, the Na­tion­al E-Com­merce Strat­e­gy should build up­on and com­ple­ment all oth­er Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives in this area, avoid­ing the du­pli­ca­tion of ef­forts. I un­der­stand that na­tion­al stake­hold­er in­ter­est and in­volve­ment in this project has been ex­cel­lent to date, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from a wide cross-sec­tion of stake­hold­ers from the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, as well as acad­e­mia. This is tes­ta­ment to the im­por­tance of this na­tion­al ini­tia­tive and with your sup­port, has the po­ten­tial to be trans­for­ma­tive for T&T’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty,” the min­is­ter said.

Fol­low­ing the Mul­ti-Stake­hold­er Con­sul­ta­tions held in Port-of-Spain in March, Gopee-Scoon said stake­hold­ers have been brought to­geth­er once again, to as­sess and val­i­date the find­ings of T&T’s eTrade Readi­ness As­sess­ment.

“The as­sess­ment presents the gaps, op­por­tu­ni­ties, and chal­lenges to e-com­merce de­vel­op­ment in T&T across sev­en pol­i­cy ar­eas. It is a prod­uct of com­ments shared dur­ing that con­sul­ta­tion ses­sion; along with bi­lat­er­al meet­ings; on­line sur­veys with the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor and con­sumers; as well as desk re­search on oth­er re­lat­ed strate­gies,” she ex­plained.

The min­is­ter out­lined that some of the pre­lim­i­nary ar­eas al­ready iden­ti­fied for ac­tion in­clude:

• Up­dat­ed le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works;

• En­hanced and co-or­di­nat­ed lo­gis­ti­cal sys­tem for de­liv­ery of goods;

• Strength­ened da­ta col­lec­tion ef­forts on ICT and e-com­merce to in­form pol­i­cy mak­ing;

• Af­ford­able on­line pay­ment so­lu­tions;

• Five in­cu­ba­tors and dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy pro­grammes; and

• Tar­get­ed fi­nanc­ing pro­grammes for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es.

Gopee-Scoon said this as­sess­ment is a blue­print that will in­form the de­vel­op­ment of the Na­tion­al E-Com­merce Strat­e­gy.

“There­fore, I must stress the im­por­tance of your ob­jec­tive and crit­i­cal in­put and com­ments to­wards en­sur­ing that the doc­u­ment ac­cu­rate­ly cap­tures the lo­cal e-com­merce con­text in your re­spec­tive ar­eas of fo­cus,” she added.