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Lebanon is seventh among Asian countries in E-Commerce despite poor legislation

26-3-2015

ESCWA organized a news conference at the UN House in Beirut district to present the report issued by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and entitled ‘Unlocking the Potentials of E-Commerce for Developing Countries’. This UNCTAD report indicated a steady rise of e-commerce opportunities in developing countries, particularly with the extensive use of smart phones and social networking applications in internet shopping, in addition to the emergence of local e-companies providing e-commerce services. According to that report Lebanon came seventh in the top ten UNCTAD index list of Asian countries for the year 2014, leading China, United Arab Emirates, Iran and other Arab countries. The report also revealed that while the online purchasing share in Lebanon reached 10% between 2012 and 2013, the rate hiked to 45% in shopping through social media networks. In this respect, the Head of the Statistics Department at ESCWA, Rami Zaatari clarified that e-commerce index between consumers and companies and which is used as the classification benchmark, is based on compiled data for the use of internet, credit cards and postal service mail delivery. Zaatari explained that Lebanon has adopted flexible solutions to facilitate trade via smart phones and enable payment through mobile payment systems. However, Zaatari added, that while Lebanon is not equipped to access main global e-commerce servers or markets, efforts made by the Lebanese private sector in this field are commendable, notwithstanding the impeding government legislation. For her part, Hania Dimasi, from ESCWA Creative Department, expressed concern over the absence of appropriate laws that could effectively counter electronic crimes, pointing also to a large discrepancy between the different Arab countries in terms of cyber legislation and laws. The UNCTAD report concluded that despite widespread legislations combating electronic crimes, there are still some 30 countries which do not observe nor support any such regulations. Cyber-crimes, to note, widely vary between non-monetary crimes, like hacking confidential business or credit card information and spreading viruses on computers. (Al Diyar, 25 March 2015)

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