MAKATI CITY, Apr. 13 — The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is urging Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to venture into e-commerce to expand market reach. The agency recently launched the Philippine e-commerce roadmap which targets to engage 100,000 MSMEs by 2020.
“The Philippine E Commerce Roadmap engages people and organizations to collaborate for MSME development. We need to build capacity, attract investments in infrastructure, and institute policies to enable MSMEs to maximize benefits of e-commerce,” DTI Secretary Adrian Cristobal Jr. said.
For the nearly one million MSMEs in the Philippines, the e-commerce roadmap unlocks the doors to a virtual market of approximately 3.37 billion internet users worldwide, 1.62 billion in Asia, and 47.13 million in the Philippines.
The Philippine E-Commerce Roadmap 2016-2020 is a blueprint to address issues in the country’s e-commerce ecosystem with Infrastructure, Investment, Innovation, Intellectual capital, Information flows, and Integration as key focus areas.
Recently, DTI and the Philippine Trade Training Center conducted a Special Workshop on Developing a Full E-Commerce Business. The pilot workshop assesses the training needs of MSMEs to engage in Business to Business E-Commerce Transactions, E-Commerce Site building, readiness for Electronic Payments; and basics of Facebook Marketing & Advertising, customer relations management, and E-mail Marketing.
Trade and Industry Undersecretary Prudencio M. Reyes, Jr said that the DTI’s Negosyo Centers will soon be working with MSMEs on the ecommerce trainings. He also said that the DTI has been meeting various agencies such as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to discuss the country’s readiness for online transactions.
Philippine E-Commerce Outlook 2018 projects the e-commerce industry to grow by 101.4% by 2018 from US$ 1.15 billion in 2013. (DTI)