The Change Mariner

Developing Nations Begin to Embrace Internet Commerce

NYT:
E-COMMERCE is starting to find a place in some of the world's emerging economies. Governments and businesses in a growing number of developing nations have begun building the infrastructure needed for online commerce, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or Unctad.

"Governments are more and more aware that this can be a tremendous boon to their economy," said Angel Gonzalez-Sanz, an Unctad economist who spoke by phone from Geneva. "They're starting to recognize that policy choices matter; the attitude of the government, the business community. When you tackle issues like infrastructure and lack of awareness, results come."

Mr. Gonzalez-Sanz said that Thailand, for example, is starting to see results from a government strategy that began in 1996 and was updated in 2002. Under that plan, the nation has moved aggressively to improve computer and Internet literacy by, among many other things, selling $250 personal computers and $500 notebook computers to its citizens and wiring thousands of schools for the Internet in the last two years.

The government has also set up two national Internet switching points and created a plan to offer Internet services throughout the country.

The early results for online commerce are modest but promising. From 2000 to 2001, the latest period for which data is available, the share of Thailand's Web sites selling goods or services online doubled, to 12 percent. The proportion of Thailand's Internet users who live outside Bangkok, the capital, has steadily improved, reaching 50 percent last year.