ISLAMABAD            -          Adviser to the Prime Minster on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood Friday said the government was committed to empower the women by providing the facility of e-commerce platform for promoting digital business in the country.

The Women Economic Empowerment Group (WEEG) would be made operational soon to have dedicated initiatives for women entrepreneurs, he, in a statement issued by Ministry of Commerce, said.

He said ‘WCom’ a mobile app was being developed to facilitate youth and women entrepreneurs for promoting digital businesses culture in Pakistan.

He appreciated the progress made by the provinces to attract more and more e-commerce platform through tax facilitation and promotion of digital payment. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has reduced General Sales Tax (GST) to two percent for online platform, while Punjab had also decreased five percent GST.

Razak Dawood said there was reduction in sales tax for certain sectors only on digital payments also considered.

A sub-committee on shift to digital payments would work with small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) and logistics companies for the capacity building and develop score card to monitor the progress, he said. “I chaired the 2nd National e-commerce council meeting and discussed detailed implementation plan of Pakistan e-commerce policy, progress made in the six months included breakthrough with Amazon, cross border facilitation,” he added.

The adviser also underscored that the trend of e-commerce had increased rapidly in the recent years with the development and easy accessibility of the internet.

He added that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of e-commerce had increased manifolds, making it an extremely vital sector for the economy.

He stressed the importance of directing the resources towards digital adoption and connecting the SMEs to e-platforms across the globe, while exploring new market access opportunities for them.

He appreciated the coordinated efforts of public and private sector for the effective implementation of e-commerce of the policy.