Funded by a €1.7 million EU grant, E-Commerce in Lebanon (Ecomleb) aims to promote e-commerce in Lebanon and to formulate a complete set of laws and decrees necessary to facilitate online business and banking. This legal basket containing 10 draft laws should be ready to be go to parliament by June. “When these laws are passed by parliament,” said project manager Alain Jean, “Lebanon will have the most advanced and coherent legal framework in the Middle East, which puts it years ahead of other countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Dubai.”
According to Radwan Habli, IT advisor to the ministry of economy, “in normal circumstances,” it will take between three months and a year for parliament to pass the bill. Meanwhile, Ecomleb is promoting the use of e-commerce through conferences, press releases, its quarterly journal and website, as well as a soon to be released CD-Rom on the leading e-commerce activities in the country.
So far, the digital way of doing business has not exactly taken the country by storm. A report published last February by the Beirut-based Stanford Research Institute concluded that: “despite high levels of computer penetration and reasonable degree of adoption and use of the internet, e-commerce is yet to gain ground in Lebanon. By the summer of 2004, only 9% of all Lebanese internet users shopped online.”
However, there are exceptions to the general rule, as companies such as Tripoli’s Hallab Sweets and Khan al Saboun, as well as online travel agency skileb have demonstrated promising results. According to Jean, as Lebanon is a service industry, it is about time the country hops on the bandwagon. “Just look at the figures,” he said. “In the USA, online retail revenues increased by 25% from 2002 to reach $60 billion and is expected to grow by an annual 19% over the next five years. In the EU, companies selling and people buying online has increased dramatically as well.”
(For more information: www.ecomleb.org)
