Analyst - PAGES

Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Commerce
Ghanaian businesses use
e-commerce to penetrate
Africa’s single market
anumber Ghanaian
companies looking to
develop export markets
by leveraging on the
african Continental
Free Trade agreement will now have
the opportunity to explore the
african marketplace effectively
following the operationalization of a
tool that provides business data and
The new tool is the first ever to offer
online africa-wide analysis of business-toconsumer
(B2C) marketplaces, detailing the
characteristics of more than 630 e-
commerce marketplaces across the
continent.
The online market tool dubbed: africa
Market Explorer, has been developed by the
International Trade Centre (ITC) and the
amsterdam University of applied
Sciences to explore the e-commerce
marketplace ecosystem in africa and as
such, addresses the lack of comprehensive
information about marketplaces on the
continent.
There is an increasing need and demand
for markets to be developed and product
orders to be made online through e-
commerce channels as a result of the
analyses of e-commerce
marketplaces all around the
continent.
This is coming at a most
opportune time as Ghanaian
businesses have seen their plans for
customer market expansion across
the continent through afCFTa
threatened by COVId 19 related
travel restrictions.
Coronavirus pandemic which is making it
difficult for people to transact business
physically.
Many businesses in Ghana and beyond
are therefore using online commerce to
remain in business and this is expected to
deliver comprehensive benefits to both
counterparties in commerce transactions.
However, the greater challenge facing
african e-commerce firms has always been
getting adequate information to enable such
firms explore the various market
opportunities that abound.
Since data and analyses on local
marketplaces are hard to come by or in some
instances are highly incomplete, the ITC
insists that with the operationalization of
the market explorer, african entrepreneurs
in the e-commerce sector will have better
businesses in
Ghana “Many
and beyond
are therefore using
online commerce
to remain in
business and this is
expected to deliver
comprehensive
benefits to both
counterparties in
commerce
transactions.
information on how to sell goods online in
regional markets and neighbouring
countries where effective demand exist.
although e-commerce is growing in
africa, information for entrepreneurs
remains inadequate. according to the ITC,
the tool aims to build the world’s largest
community of e-commerce entrepreneurs
engaged in the sustainable development of
small businesses online by facilitating
shared learning, innovative solutions,
collaboration and partnerships.
“This comprehensive set of data provides
an important contribution for
understanding how the development of e-
commerce can be supported in africa”, ITC’s
acting Executive director, dorothy Tembo
noted during the launch of the new tool.
The tool reveals that just one per cent of
africa’s e-commerce marketplaces are
responsible for 60 per cent of the
marketplace traffic on the whole continent.
Only 11 per cent of the marketplaces
websites actually enable financial
transactions which limits the possibilities of
selling internationally.
The african Union Commission has
incorporated an Electronic Commerce (ecommerce)
protocol into the pan african
trade agreement. It is now scheduled to be
addressed under the third phase of the
agreement’s rollout.
The acceptance of the e-commerce
protocol came about during the 33rd aU
Ordinary Session held early this year in
Ethiopia. Phase III protocol is expected to
kick-in immediately after conclusion of
Phase II negotiations, which include
competition policy, intellectual property
rights and investment protocol.
Importantly, the Executive Council of
the aU has directed the aU Commission to
embark on preparations for the upcoming
negotiations and mobilise resources for
capacity building for african trade
negotiators to be involved in the
negotiations of e-commerce legal
instruments for afCFTa.
“Member States must critically review
approaches that are being made to them by
bilateral partners to enter into bilateral e-
commerce legal instruments with them in
order to ensure that africa is able to
negotiate and implement an afCFTa
protocol on e-commerce such as data and
products being traded under e-commerce.
“This will promote the emergence of
african owned e-commerce platforms at
national, regional and continental levels”,
says an aU report
Initially, the e-commerce was not added
to the protocols for negotiations. But
following a summit convened by the World
Economic Forum (WEF) and the
International Trade Centre (ITC) last year,
steps were initiated to have e-commerce
protocol incorporated into the agreement.
This follows a release of the african E-
Commerce agenda – an eight step action
plan - put forward by the WEF and ITC as
they unveiled a roadmap on e-commerce for
african governments to realize its vast
economic potential benefits for the
continent.