[Ecommerce] WIPO urges Jordan to get with the program

[Manon Ress]

Note: within the proposed Middle East Free Trade Initiative, the
Jordanian FTA is already in place, negotiations complete with Morrocco
and the Kingdom of Bahrain, and talks underway with United Arab Emirates
and Oman.
Manon

Jordan urged to make transition to e-commerce
=09Jordan Times - 25/04/2005
  http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=3D89328

AMMAN =E2=80=94 Jordan should take advantage of the opportunities offered b=
y
electronic commerce in order to narrow the gap with developed economies,
said a speaker at a two-day conference that concluded yesterday.

The "E-Commerce Conference: Strategies & Policies" provided attendees
with the specific knowledge and capabilities needed to participate
successfully in the electronic economy.

Intellectual assets and knowledge now exceed physical capital in value,
according to Lucinda Jones, a senior legal officer with the World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and speaker at the conference.

Jones noted that "uncertainty and a lack of awareness and technical
skills" are preventing equal participation in the information society.

It is crucial for a country like Jordan to "make the transition to an
e-economy so as to narrow the gap between it and developed economies,"
Jones said, warning that "not to make that leap would be fatal."

The conference, which featured American legal experts and Jordanian
business leaders, addressed a wide range of overlapping e-commerce, IT,
and intellectual property issues.

Tawfiq Al Tabaa, board member of the Jordan Intellectual Property
Association (JIPA), which organised the conference, told The Jordan
Times the gathering aimed to highlight e-commerce success stories for
Jordanian and regional companies to emulate, such as Tejari, the eBay of
the Middle East based in Dubai with over 60,000 catalogued items from
more than 1,000 suppliers.

Tejari Jordan General Manager Yazan Hatamleh encouraged businesses to
stake online territory and capitalise on global online trade, expected
to reach $12.8 trillion by 2008.

Expansion of e-commerce is set to take off in the Arab world where
Internet users are expected to triple in the next three years, according
to Khaldoun Tabaza, a board member of the Arab Private Equity Union.

E-banking, a leading e-commerce sector and a key topic at the
conference, was lauded as a "win-win-win" business by Naser M. Khraishi,
assistant general manager of IT for the Jordan-Kuwait Bank. Customers,
banks, and the overall economy all benefit when banking moves online, he
said.

Khraishi admitted that jobs would be lost as the sector goes online, but
remained convinced that the move would be beneficial in the long run.
Companies that provide infrastructure for e-banking such as SMS services
and centralised check clearing could sell their services throughout the
region and in the global market, he told The Jordan Times.

Eric Gardu=D8=B2o, project manager for the International Intellectual
Property Institute, told the audience that "efficiency is the absolute
benchmark for international competitiveness," so the expected job loss
would be only temporary. "E-commerce," he asserted, "will produce more
business for companies and, in turn, will provide more jobs."

He reviewed the factors which enabled e-commerce to succeed in the US,
including widespread and affordable Internet accesss and significant
market penetration of sophisticated personal computers.

While Jordan's PC penetration is still low and Internet relatively
expensive, the situation is improving, Gardu=D8=B2o said, and Internet cafe=
s
are widely used. Moreover, financial institutions like the Jordan
Commercial Bank offer SMS banking services, an accessible venue in
Jordan, where mobile phone penetration is high.

The conference was held under the patronage of HRH Prince Ali Ben Al
Hussein with funding from USAID and support from the WIPO.




--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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