ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Advisor on Commerce and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood on Thursday reviewed progress on cross border e-Commerce procedures and formulation of return policy of e-Commerce exports.
Presiding over third meeting of the National e-Commerce Council (NeCC), he sought clarifications on different steps taken to promote e-Commerce and their impact in growth of e-Commerce in the country as well as exports and imports.
NeCC is a body of representatives from public and private sector and was constituted in line with the directions of National e-Commerce Policy of Pakistan, approved by the Federal Cabinet on October 1, 2019.
The main objective of the Council is to develop effective collaboration with all relevant sectors for effective implementation of the e-Commerce Policy. The first and second meetings of the Council were held under the chairmanship of the Advisor Commerce on 14th January, 2020 and 18th June, 2020 respectively. The third meeting of the NeCC was attended by all notified members of the Council from Public and Private sector.
According to the Commerce Ministry, one of the most important outcomes of the meeting included the project kick off between NIFT and Checkout.com for bringing international payment methods to Pakistan. The implementation will enable both organizations to provide payment services through each other's infrastructure and pursue commercial opportunities as a partnership. This strives towards a borderless experience for business and consumers alike, promoting digital payments and settlements for exports and digital commerce across Pakistan.
Checkout.com is a global payment provider which offers reliable payments in more than 150 different currencies, in-country acquiring, robust fraud filters and reporting - all accessed through a single point of integration. They accept payments from all major international card schemes, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Union Pay as well as popular alternative and local payment methods. Checkout.com brings a unified offering of all the prominent international payment methods and wallets such as PayPal, AliPay, Apple Pay and Google Pay enabling the merchants to pay and run their businesses in Pakistan.
An MoU was also signed between P@SHA and Chain Store Association of Pakistan for working together to promote the use of indigenous technology and connectivity of the SMEs for promoting e-Commerce.
Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) shared update on cross border e-Commerce procedure (Integration of e-Commerce exports with WeBoC), and progress on formulation of Return Policy for e-Commerce exports. SECP briefed about the facilitative registration mechanism introduced for e-Commerce sector.
The private sector sub-committee formulated on financial inclusion and digitization through payment infrastructure during second NeCC shared its progress over digital transformation in payments. The Sub-Committee was formed with the aim to identify and explore opportunities to promote e-Commerce through gradual shift towards digital payments. The presentation also portrayed the current state of digital payment landscape and the need to introduce some taxation incentives for encouraging the masses towards digital adoption.
Terms of Reference for the Consultative Group on Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) (approved during the 2nd meeting of National e-Commerce Council) were also shared for approval of the Council. The role of WEE would be the representation of the economic interests of women, provision of policy inputs to the National e-Commerce Council (NeCC) in order to promote gender mainstreaming through national e-Commerce policy and other trade related policies.
Discussing the logistics sector, Pakistan Post briefed the participants about the latest development made for integration of Pakpost with National Single Window, digital transformation of the National Postal Service with increased transparency through tracking and traceability of shipments and a new planned initiative of collect and return services for the exchange and return of articles through postal counters.
An update was also shared from FBR and PRAs on harmonization of taxation regime through National Tax Council and taxation facilitation introduced for private sector with the intention to promote e-Commerce. Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication updated about personal data protection bill the revised draft of which will be available for public comments within a month or two.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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