E-commerce and e-business hold great potential and opportunities for SMEs in the CARIFORUM region. Besides access to new and bigger markets, such electronically mediated trade can help to bring about reduced costs and faster turnaround times by streamlining and integrating processes along the entire business value chain. Nevertheless, in the Caribbean an integrated strategy to assist SMEs in benefitting from e-commerce has hitherto been lacking. The present document aims at correcting this situation. In particular, the strategies proposed are hoped to help Caribbean firms to not only increase intra-regional goods and services trade through e-commerce but also to capitalise on the opportunities created by the CARIFORUM States’ Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union. In this sense, the strategy has been formulated after examining the operational and legal issues surrounding e-commerce in CARIFORUM. It recommends specific, tangible interventions to be made in the context of programmes aimed at enhancing the use of e-commerce by SMEs in CARIFORUM by addressing specific challenges they face.

Read Full Article Here: Programme to enhance the Establishment of e-Commerce Regimes and the Adoption of e- Commerce by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES) in CARIFORUM