ISLAMABAD, Dec 01 (APP):Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on E-Commerce, Senator Aon Abbas Buppi on Wednesday said that the government plans to increase e-commerce trade volume up to $9 billion in the next two years by June 2023.
There are already conflicting figures in Pakistan’s e-commerce trade, however, with the current trade of $4.5 billion, “we can take it up to $9 billion, ” he said this while chairing the one day ‘National E- Commerce Symposium’ organized by the Ministry of Commerce here.
Senior Joint Secretary, Ms Aisha Moirani including the E- Commerce leaders and traders Mr. Badar Khushnood,Mr. Sunny Ali,Mr. Saqib Azhar, Rehan Allahwala, Zulqarnain Abbas, Hisham Sarwar, Azad Chaiwala, Huzaifa Ali, Usman Chughtai, Syed Tauqeer,Bobby Shahzad, Haroon Raja,Mr Asfandya, Qasim Sana Ramay, Adeem Mirza,Rizwan Zafar and Ahmed Memon also participated in the Symposium.
Meanwhile SAPM on E- Commerce, Senator Aon Abbas Buppi said said that most of the e-commerce business is doing by the youth and now at this time ,the government will provide them all kinds of facilities. “I will take care of all the issues of e-commerce traders including State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and other tax agencies” he said.
He said that most of the issues are related to finance, taxes, logistics data and Ease of Doing Business (EOBD) of which “we are already aware and the government will pay full attention to this.”
Aon Abbas said that the government would soon be setting up the first e-commerce university, which would enhance the capabilities of e-commerce trader’s not only in Pakistan but also in the emerging E- commerce international market.
He said that the establishment of e-commerce University would provide new employment opportunities to the youth in Pakistan and the country would become a part of the global supply chain which would enhance our economic strength.
SAPM said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has high hopes from the youth and now mostly youth are in e-commerce trading, which can increase the country’s exports as well as provide ample employment opportunities.
He said that similarly the government was planning to create the first e-commerce web portal in the country, which would help in curbing illegal trade.
He said that with the help of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, an e-commerce portal would be created and transparency would be brought in this sector.
Aon Abbas urged the e-commerce leaders to come forward and train the country’s large youth population in this sector so that youth from remote areas like Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Sindh and other provinces could come forward and become part of the country’s economic power and gain decent employment opportunities.
He said that e-commerce leaders now have a responsibility to change the lives of 45 Percent of the youth living in remote areas of the country. These services will be a great provision to their country and these young people will become an asset to our population.
He said that youth empowerment is the first priority of the government for which there is no better tool than e-commerce.
He said that apart from Business to Business, the government will solve all the problems in this sector with regard to business to company.
Speaking on the occasion, Senior Joint Secretary Ministry of Commerce, Aisha Moirani said that the government is fully committed to promote e-commerce business domestically and globally.
“Our ministry is working hard to link e-commerce business with industry,” he said.
The e-commerce leaders and traders also gave their recommendations on the occasion and discussed issues related to Business to Business, taxation, logistics, money transaction, e-commerce supply chain, Ease of Doing Business (EODB), data protection, Centralized regulation and business structure.
On this occasion, e-commerce trader Badar Khushnood said that in the current government, many issues regarding our policy level and other transactions have been resolved.
He said that SBP also extended full cooperation in this regard.
He said that Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) need to link to this sector and also need to address issues of online payments.
