E-commerce in the terms of COVID-19 pandemic

On October 26-27 this year, Minister of Trade and Integration Bakhyt Sultanov took part in online forum "Conjugation of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Chinese initiative" One Belt, One Road "at the platform of the Eurasian Economic Commission between the EAEU member states and the People's Republic of China.

Thus, the main topic of the forum was economic recovery after the pandemic and interaction between the EAEU and China.

The key session of the Forum was the ministerial session on the topic “Global economic challenge: anti-crisis measures to restore national economies after the pandemic and return to international trade”, in which Parties exchanged views on the vision of international trade after the pandemic.

Bakhyt Sultanov, in turn, made a presentation on "The role of electronic commerce in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic" “The coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected many sectors of the global economy, but there are also industries that have benefited from the introduced quarantine measures, such as
e-commerce,” the Minister said.

Electronic commerce is one of the important modern sectors of the national economy of Kazakhstan, which contributes to the development and growth of domestic and foreign trade, non-cash payments, reducing business costs and shadow turnover.

“During the quarantine period in the Republic of Kazakhstan, there was an increase in online trading and payment transactions (according to the National Bank - by 2.5 times). However, in order to fully increase the existing growth rates of e-commerce, further improvement of regulatory and technical support is necessary», - Sultanov noted.

Thus, the minister stressed that today the Ministry of Trade and Integration is carrying out the following work in this direction:

- direct support is being actively provided to promote beginners and experienced entrepreneurs on Internet platforms;

- measures are being taken to support Kazakhstani digital trading platforms, which are developing at a rapid pace, especially in a pandemic;

- the launch of a single platform for receiving complaints from consumers on the principle of “single window” is envisaged within the framework of the new norms of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights;

- together with the International Trade Center (ITC), a large-scale 4-year project "Ready4Trade Central Asia" is being implemented

(its goal is to support the development of intraregional and international trade in five countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan);