Jack Ma calls for easier e-commerce rules at WTO meeting

Alibaba founder Jack Ma recently urged World Trade Organisation (WTO) members to adopt easier and transparent rules for e-commerce to encourage small businesses to succeed. He was addressing a session to launch an initiative, 'Enabling e-commerce', to promote policies and practices for small businesses at the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires.

WTO member nations are divided over the way the issue of e-commerce should be tackled. While some want to push e-commerce to the negotiating table, India and many others maintain that binding rules would restrict the policy space to deal with the emerging sector, and favour the continuation of 1998 Work Programme with non-negotiating mandate.

Ma urged businesses and governments to work together to create a more inclusive trade model to expand the benefits of globalisation to those who have been left behind, according to a news agency report.

The ‘Enabling e-commerce’ initiative, a joint effort of the WTO, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP), envisions a set-up where small businesses, young people and developing countries can succeed in the global marketplace, Ma added.