On December 11, the 2nd ministerial meeting of Friends of E-Commerce for Development was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference. Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen attended the meeting and delivered a speech on behalf of Minister Zhong Shan.

Wang said the Friends of E-Commerce for Development has done a lot of work since 2017. After the first ministerial meeting in April, four members were newly added, a series of dialogues were held at WTO focusing on the issues of the developing members’ common concerns and opinions were actively stated in the discussions of Council for Trade in Goods, Council for Trade in Services and Committee on Trade and Development.

Wang pointed out that e-commerce is good for the developing economies to integrate into the global value chain and for the SMEs, women and teenagers to get involved in international trade. APEC, G20 and BRICS have been concerned highly about the e-commerce in recent years and a series of achievements have been made, which shows the international society’s increasing awareness of e-commerce’s promotion for development.

Wang stressed that Friends of E-Commerce for Development should continue to promote the exchanges and discussions at the WTO. By using the WTO’s current technical assistance and capacity building arrangements, we should strengthen cooperation with the relevant international organizations and push forward the development of e-commerce.

Attending were ministers and representatives from 14 member countries of Friends of E-Commerce for Development including Argentina, Chile and Colombia and non-member countries such as Brazil, Paraguay, Singapore, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Thailand. They all made speeches. Friends of E-Commerce for Development is a developing members’ group, launched by member countries such as Pakistan and Costa Rica and focusing on e-commerce development. China joined it in September 2017.