Daily Times

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on E-Commerce Senator Aon Abbas Buppi on Thursday said that the government would soon lay the foundation of Pakistan’s first e-commerce university.

“We 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.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on E-Commerce, Senator Aon Abbas Buppi said this while chairing the one-day ‘National E-Commerce Symposium’ organized by the Ministry of Commerce, said a press release.

Senior Joint Secretary, Aisha Moirani including the e-commerce leaders and traders Badar Khushnood, Sunny Ali, Saqib Azhar, Rehan Allahwala, Zulqarnain Abbas, Hisham Sarwar, Azad Chaiwala, Huzaifa Ali, Usman Chughtai, Syed Tauqeer, Bobby Shahzad, Haroon Raja, Asfandya, Qasim Sana Ramay, Adeem Mirza, Rizwan Zafar and Ahmed Memon also participated in the Symposium.

Meanwhile, the SAPM on E-Commerce, Senator Aon Abbas Buppi said that most of the e-commerce business was done by the youth and now at this time, the government would provide them all the facilities.

He said that the establishment of an 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.

The SAPM said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had high hopes from the youth and now mostly youth were in e-commerce trading, which could 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 into this sector.

The SAPM said that the government plans to increase an e-commerce trade volume up to Nine billion US dollars in the next two years by June 2023.

There were 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.

“I will take care of all the issues of e-commerce traders including the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and other tax agencies,” he said.

He said that most of the issues were 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 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 the e-commerce leaders now had a responsibility to change the lives of 45 Percent of the youth living in remote areas of the country. These services would be a great provision to their country and these young people would become an asset to our population.

He said that youth empowerment was the first priority of the government for which there was no better tool than e-commerce.

He said that apart from Business to Business(B2B), the government would 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 was fully committed to promoting e-commerce business domestically and globally. “Our ministry is working hard to link e-commerce business with the 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 the SBP also extended full cooperation in this regard.

He said that the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) needed to link to this sector and also needed to address issues of online payments.