ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities are planning to boost the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by $36 billion and create more than 4 million jobs by 2025 through e-commerce use of digital financial services.
The country is focusing on the digitization of the economy by promoting online businesses to increase exports and create job opportunities for youth.
“The IT-led revolution is transforming business processes and all other related things, therefore we need to keep pace with it to increase our exports and create more job opportunities,” Aisha Humera Moriani, joint secretary (WTO) at Ministry of Commerce, told Arab News in an interview.
She said the government was also developing an international payment gateway that would be integrated with other online payment companies, like PayPal, to facilitate incoming payments.
“At the moment, majority of our exports are reported as remittances as we don’t have an international payment gateway,” she said, adding the system would help freelancers and other businesses to get their payments transferred real-time.
Pakistan’s freelance service providers have huge potential to bring foreign exchange, as with the 47 percent growth rate the country ranks fourth among the world’s fastest-growing freelance markets, and is only behind the US, UK and Brazil.
Moriani said that sales of local and international e-commerce merchants in Pakistan have increased to Rs40.1 billion in 2018 from Rs20.7 billion in 2017.
“These figures do not include all the post-paid cash-on-delivery transactions which account for 60 percent of the total value of e-commerce in Pakistan,” she said.
Although the digital industry is still in the infancy stage in Pakistan, a steady rise in e-commerce transactions and the number of registered e-commerce merchants has been observed. In the first quarter of the financial year 2017-18, the number of registered online merchants was 496. It reached 1,094 by the year’s end, and was around 1,242 in the first quarter of FY2018-19.
Also the number of Pakistan’s Internet banking users has increased from 1.8 million in 2015 to 3.3 million in 2019. The number of m-wallets rose from 15.3 million to 35.7 million, while of mobile banking users from 2.2 million to 5.6 million.
“A digitally connected Pakistan, down to the remotest village, holds the promise for providing sustainable employment for our youth and empowerment for women,” Moriani said, adding that technology helped young entrepreneurs in taking their small businesses to the global market.
In the wake of booming online business opportunities and e-commerce platforms, data protection remains a challenge for the government and customers.
“Once we share our mobile number, email ID and home address with an online portal to purchase something, they no longer remain private and protected,” Saba Hameed, an online shopper, told Arab News.
She said the government should enforce consumer data protection and other digital rights to boost confidence in online business platforms. “Online shopping is easy and hassle-free, but risky at the same time in the absence of relevant laws,” she added.
The Ministry of Information Technology has recently initiated the formulation of Pakistan’s first cloud policy to ensure the privacy and integrity of digital information. The government has also drafted the Data Protection Bill for the purpose, but it has yet to be passed by the parliament.
Mubashir Sargana, an expert in information technology, said that Pakistan would not be able to increase its exports until it has enacted and implemented consumer protection laws, especially on data protection.
“The majority of developed countries don’t allow their enterprises to transact with companies from countries that don’t offer the same level of data protection,” he told Arab News, referring to EU regulations.
He said that data was the “most valuable” resource in the digital economy, therefore it was imperative to have effective protection laws to unleash the true potential of e-commerce.
