22 October 1999

Text: ITU on Promoting E-commerce in Developing Countries

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an agency of the United Nations, is offering a full range of electronic commerce services to developing countries.

The director of the ITU's telecommunications development bureau, Hamadoun Toure, says the goal is to eliminate a gap in electronic commerce services between the industrial and developing countries.

The ITU announced its electronic commerce initiative in a press release from its Geneva headquarters October 22.

Following is the text of the press release:

International Telecommunication Union
United Nations specialized agency for telecommunications

22 October 1999

Developing Countries to be provided with full range of Electronic Commerce services as a result of the ITU, the World Trade Centre Geneva and WISeKey Partnership

Jointly issued by the ITU, the World Trade Centre Geneva and WISeKey

Geneva -- The first Electronic Commerce service developed as a result of the partnership between the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Trade Centre Geneva and the World Internet Secure Key (WISeKey SA) was launched at the ITU Telecom 99 and Interactive 99 in Geneva.

The service, called the Business Exchange Service (BeX), is to be donated by the partnership to developing countries participating in the ITU's Electronic Commerce for Developing Countries project (EC-DC) to provide them with a low-cost gateway and enable them to leap start into electronic commerce.

"As the world experiences the emergence of a global electronic economy, and as new e-business services are rolled-out in industrialized countries, the priority of the Telecommunication Development Sector is that there should be no new gaps in new services," said Mr. Hamadoun I. Tour , Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau.

"This new service is a demonstration of our commitment to work with partners in expanding the ITU EC-DC initiative by providing concrete solutions that will enable electronic commerce to be a truly global phenomenon," Tour also said.

This Partnership initiative intends to facilitate developing countries' participation in the digital economy by establishing trust in every electronic commerce transaction.

Delegates from both private and public sectors visited the ITU Stand at Telecom 99 and registered to the Business Exchange Service (BeX). This demonstrated how the service can be used by micro, small, medium and large enterprises from developing countries to conclude on-line sales of goods and services in real-time with partners in the global economy.

The service makes full use of latest electronic commerce technologies for security and for establishing trust through the authentication, authorization, and secure transaction of payments.

The BeX service will be initially deployed by the end of 1999, early 2000 to pilot locations in developing and least developed countries around the world. The pilot sites have been selected by the ITU within the framework of the EC-DC (Electronic Commerce for Developing countries) programme.

The partnership establishes a framework by which World Trade Centre Geneva and WISeKey will assist the ITU to expand the Electronic Commerce for Developing Countries project (EC-DC) using the World Trade Centre network's global infrastructure of 328 centres in more than 100 countries. It will inject micro-transaction revenues to the ITU EC-DC Trust Fund that will be used to finance the development of electronic commerce infrastructures and services in developing countries.

The partnership is open to any company affiliated with WTCA and the ITU is actively seeking further cooperation agreements with the industry in the framework of the EC-DC project.

About ITU

The ITU is a worldwide organization where 189 Member States and some 570 Sector members representing public and private companies. end text

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