Philippine e-commerce lags behind Asian peers

MANILA, Philippines – As the Philippines lags in terms of e-commerce adoption, the government and the private sector will need to work together to educate businesses as well as address trust issues on selling and buying items online to promote continued development of enterprises.

Mon Ibrahim, executive consultant for e-innovations at the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), said in a press conference yesterday while e-commerce is seen to boost growth of businesses in the Philippines with more and more people going online, the country is currently one of the countries in the Asia Pacific region with the lowest adoption of e-commerce technology.

Of the country’s total registered enterprises, only one percent are currently online or have a website with a payment gateway facility.

Ibrahim said enterprises in the country have been relatively slow in terms of e-commerce adoption amid issues on trust both on the part of businesses and the consumers.

“I think we just need to start on the very basic areas which is educating, trying to improve the trust of people both in the sellers and buyers about doing commerce online,” he said.

Ibrahim said education is an area where government and the private sector could work together to help accelerate e-commerce adoption in the country as well as reap its benefits.

Earlier this year, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)  released the Philippine e-commerce roadmap which seeks to renew the collaboration between the government and private sector to promote the growth of e-commerce.

Through the roadmap, the main objective is for e-commerce to contribute 25 percent to the Philippines’ gross domestic product by 2020 from an estimated 10 percent last year.

Ibrahim said the DICT is currently working with the DTI in implementing the roadmap and promoting cooperation with the private sector.

He said the DICT is also set to formalize its partnership with the UREKA Forum, a consortium of companies spearheaded by Union Bank of the Philippines, seeking to convene businesses, institutions and industry experts in order to provide a platform where local entrepreneurs could realize the potential of their businesses by going online.