Lai Viet Anh, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry andTrade’s Vietnam E-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency, said SMEs account fornearly 97 percent of the total in APEC and are well-positioned to cope withchallenges in e-commerce.
An eBay data showed that SMEs using digital platform earnexport revenues over five times higher than their peers with traditionalmethod. However, a majority of SMEs are yet to effectively tap such opportunities.
Ho Thi To Uyen from the agency said diverse and asynchronouslegal framework among economies has pushed up business costs.
She suggested harmonising domestic and international law toensure compatibility in legal regulations among countries and protect users’privacy.
In order to deal with disputes in e-commerce, she called forbuilding a sustainable online platform to address them as well as raising SMEsand consumers’ awareness about new regulations and policies on e-commerce anddigital trade.
At the January 17-18 workshop, participants sharedexperience and lessons to clear barriers to refining legal regulations in thefield, and offered recommendations to APEC to continue stepping up e-commercein the region.-VNA