With USD700 Million E-Commerce Spending, Tie-Ups Bring BRICS New Opportunities, MOFCOM Says
Xu Wei
DATE:  Sep 04 2017
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
With USD700 Million E-Commerce Spending, Tie-Ups Bring BRICS New Opportunities, MOFCOM Says With USD700 Million E-Commerce Spending, Tie-Ups Bring BRICS New Opportunities, MOFCOM Says

(Yicai Global) Sept. 4 -- The basic groundwork is in place for setting up e-commerce partnerships between BRICS countries, and such collaborations have enormous potential for future development, said Wang Shouwen, vice minister of China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and a member of the national delegation at the BRICS summit, at a press briefing about economic and trade cooperation between the bloc's members yesterday.

E-commerce can break down distance and time zone barriers, and thus can boost trade activity between the nations.

BRICS has 1.46 billion internet users in total, who spend more than USD700 million on online purchases, an international institution estimates. Retail trade has hit USD876 billion in the countries, of which USD9.2 billion is generated from cross-border trade transactions. The economic bloc claims a considerable share of the global e-commerce market, Wang noted, and e-commerce businesses have significant implications for driving economic growth, employment and small business development and improving the employability of young people and women in BRICS countries.

They are aware of the importance and potential of e-commerce. The cooperative initiative that the five countries introduced at this year's meeting of BRICS' trade ministers in Shanghai sets out four priority tasks -- forming an e-commerce working group, strengthening dialogs and communications between government regulators and e-commerce firms, offering suggestions for future cooperation based on studies of the current situation and features of e-commerce markets in BRICS countries and the challenges they face, and intensifying collaborative capacity-building to improve the standard of e-commerce operations among small- and micro-businesses, Wang noted.

The trade ministers have reached a consensus on the initiative, and approval by BRICS' top-level leaders in their next meeting for it is pending, he added, stressing that the initiative will lay a solid foundation for further developing e-commerce in the countries.

They will conduct talks regarding online business-related matters such as logistics, payment, consumer protection and communication. Solving these issues will facilitate e-commerce activities, bringing significant economic benefits to the five countries. At present, trade between BRICS countries only makes up 6 percent of their total foreign trade volume, leaving great scope for future growth. Cooperation in e-commerce will open new opportunities for all the countries involved, Wang advised.

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Keywords:   BRICS,E-COMMERCE