The Trade Department advised micro, small and medium enterprises to venture into electronic commerce to expand market reach.
The agency recently launched the Philippine e-commerce roadmap which targeted 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,” Trade Secretary Adrian Cristobal Jr. said.
He said for nearly one million MSMEs in the Philippines, the e-commerce roadmap could unlock the doors to a virtual market of 3.37 billion Internet users worldwide, including 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.
The Trade Department 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 and advertising, customer relations management and e-mail marketing.
Trade undersecretary Prudencio Reyes Jr. said Negosyo centers would soon work with MSMEs on e-commerce trainings.
Reyes said the department met with various agencies such as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to discuss the country’s readiness for online transactions.
The Philippine e-commerce outlook 2018 expects the e-commerce industry to grow by 101.4 percent by 2018 from $1.15 billion in 2013.