• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Our Bureau

New Delhi , Nov. 20

Although no developing country seems to have regressed in its integration into the digital economy, the majority of them face limitations on development of their e-economy, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said.

In its E-Commerce and Development Report 2003, released in Geneva, Unctad said that these limitations stemmed largely from low-income levels, low literacy rates, lack of payment system that could underpin online transactionsand cultural resistance to online trade.

The report said that almost all official estimates of e-commerce activity referred to the high-income market economies. Quoting data from surveys by the rich countries club, OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the report said the share of Internet users buying online was the highest in the Nordic countries, the UK and the US, where 38 per cent of users had made purchases online; it was the lowest in Mexico, where fewer than 0.6 per cent had done so.

Examining the opportunities offered by business process outsourcing (BPO) for developing countries, it said the market for BPO was expanding.

"The competitiveness of Indian vendors has been so impressive that six States in the US have proposed bills to limit offshore outsourcing for State contracts and decrease the number of visas issued to foreign workers," the report said.

The report also singled out for praise the Indian Simputer, developed by a team of Indian scientists, which is a hand-held device, designed as a low-cost portable alternative to personal computer. The Simputer has already been successfully used in projects involving bringing technology to schools, providing microfinance to farmers in rural areas and using e-governance to automate the process of land records procurement.

The report also highlighted the dominance of business-to-business (B2B) transactions in e-commerce. In 2001, the annual B2B online sales in the US amounted to $995 billion or 93.3 per cent of all US e-commerce. It noted that the world economy was becoming an ICT-based (information and communication technologies) economy. Stating that formulating and implementing national ICT strategies remained by far the biggest challenge for policy makers, the report underlined the need for a holistic approach to a national e-strategy as far as both sectors and stakeholders are concerned, given the complexity and cross-cutting nature of ICT.

It said some developing countries had taken the initiative in using ICT and e-commerce to market agricultural exports. Internet-based marketing of tea has begun in India, while the online auctions for speciality coffee are being held annually in Brazil, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
BPO sector may witness a few IPOs next year

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line