Qatar's e-Commerce Forum Kicks Off October 19

Doha, October 04 (QNA) - HE Minister of Information and Communications Technology Dr Hessa Al Jaber will inaugurate Qatar's e-Commerce Forum 2015 which will be held on October 19. Qatar's e-Commerce Forum brings together businesses, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders to be part of Qatars e-commerce future. This promises to be an exciting event as movers and shakers from Google, PayPal, Payfort, Aramex, and Visa, among others, will address the trends and developments in global e-commerce and the state of e-commerce in Qatar. Some of the topics for discussion include, how does Qatar achieve a regulatory environment conducive to e-commerce growth? What business models will succeed in the region and how do we fund them? And what disruptive payments and logistics technologies will lead the way to improved delivery of service? In addition, attendees will learn more about Qatars National e-Commerce Roadmap, a blueprint for ensuring that Qatar can capitalize on its strengths as well as overcome the current challenges to growing its e-commerce market. Across the globe, e-commerce is transforming the marketplace. Global e-commerce business-to-consumer sales was at $1.5 trillion in 2014 and is expected to reach $1.76 trillion in 2015. The MENA B2C market was at $15 billion in 2014. Qatar is the 7th largest B2C market in the MENA region at USD 1 billion with huge growth potential in the future. While Qatar's e-commerce market is not yet fully developed, Qatar has many of the key ingredients to realize favorable social and economic returns, including a population with high disposable income, a strong and secure ICT infrastructure, and a highly connected society. In fact, Qatar has the potential of doubling its forecasted e-commerce market size by leveraging the large investments in ICT, the growth in the SME sector, and the ongoing investments in the logistics sector. (QNA)