E-COMMERCE PLATFORMS AS A TOOL TO SUPPORT TRADE AND SUPPLY CHAINS DURING THE COVID-19 PERIOD
Senegal’s trade ministry has created an e-commerce platform that provides easy access to websites of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that sell essential goods. The Senegalese Minister of trade and SMEs, Mrs. Assome Aminata Diatta, said ” One of the main priorities of His Excellency Macky SALL, the President of the Republic of Senegal, is to ensure regular and sufficient market provision with necessary products as well as their price stabilization. E-commerce platforms offers consumers a possibility to purchase necessary goods and, in addition, a possibility to the representatives of the Ministry of trade and SMEs to anticipate potential supply chain disfunctioning”
A LARGE NUMBER OF OPERATORS JOINS THE E-COMMERCE PLATFORM
According to UNCTAD, about 60 businesses have either joined or shown an interest in joining the platform. They range from firms providing e-commerce, logistics and payment solutions to those helping entrepreneurs set up e-commerce operations. “We’d like to help businesses reach consumers in all the major urban centres, especially beyond Dakar, where current e-commerce services are concentrated,” said Ibrahima Diagne, chief executive officer of Gainde2000, the company that helped create the platform.
The platform now serves as an information portal with contact details of various e-commerce operators, but it’s aimed at pooling and optimizing goods distribution by creating a national consortium of e-commerce operators, open to all producers and merchants.
DIGITAL STRATEGY NEEDED TO ENABLE COUNTRY ADAPT TO CURRENT CHALLENGES
The inclusion of Senegal into the Digital Economy is a priority set out in the national development framework strategy, the Plan Senegal Emergent. The Senegal Digital 2025 strategy is envisaged to accelerate the roll out of internet infrastructure, which has already reached a high-level both in terms of quality of service and cost competitiveness.
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Visit the platform here: https://ecommerce-covid.sn/a-propos/
Source/Image Credit: UNCTAD, E-commerce Senegal COVID-19 Platform
