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UN conference to weigh risks and benefits of digital economy

Xinhua,March 28, 2018 Adjust font size:

GENEVA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Wednesday that at UN E-Commerce Week here next Month pros and cons of the rapid digitalization of the world economy will be examined.

"The current debate about Facebook and data privacy vividly illustrates that most countries are ill-prepared for the digital economy," UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said.

UNCTAD said that the digital economy is evolving fast and that between 2012 and 2017, the number of monthly Facebook users surged from 1 billion to 2.2 billion.

And according to Kituyi, some 90 percent of all new users of the Internet over the past half-decade or so live in developing countries, half of which currently lack legislation to protect their privacy.

Torbjorn Fredriksson, chief of ICT analysis at UNCTAD said at a press conference "This is a key feature of the evolving digital world and more than 1,000 participants are expected to take part in some 60 sessions."

According to Fredriksson, key issues to be debated during sessions include the development implications of the use of digital platforms in terms of: data privacy, competition, job creation and the sharing of benefits.

New estimates from UNCTAD suggest that global e-commerce reached almost 26 trillion U.S. dollars in 2016.

The United States remained by far the largest market, with combined e-commerce sales of some 7.6 trillion U.S. dollars, followed by Japan but with some distance away.

China is, however, the leader in the business to consumer (B2C) segment.

China and the United States accounted for just over half of all B2C sales in 2016.

India in 2016 entered the top 10 e-commerce markets for the first time.

B2C sales increased 14.5 percent in 2016 to 2.8 trillion U.S. dollars.

There were an estimated 1.4 billion online shoppers around the globe in 2016 (up by 11 percent over 2015), equivalent to 55 percent of all internet users, said UNCTAD.

"We know that the digital economy can bring great benefits to developing countries, but we need to address some critical questions to ensure that digitalization leads to the future we want," Kituyi said.

The UNCTAD meeting will be held in Geneva between April 16 and April 20. Enditem

 

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