In photo: The bustling Bonifacio Global City the country’s financial and lifestyle district (Photo by THEPHILBIZNEWS/MAS)
Digital consumers in the Philippines increased by 12 million since the start of the pandemic. Of these digital consumers, 63% are from non-metro areas and 99% said that they will continue to utilize these online services. This is according to the e-Conomy Southeast Asia (SEA) Report from Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company.
The report also hailed the Philippines as the fastest growing market among Southeast Asian countries. The country’s internet economy, from USD9 billion in 2020 is expected to double up to USD17 billion in 2021. With a 132% increase in e-Commerce, the economy is likely to reach USD40 billion in 2025.
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ramon Lopez said, “We believe that digitalization of transactions will drive our economy to greater heights. This is one of the government’s priorities to ensure that our kababayans are still able to have alternative sources of income despite the immense economic impact of the pandemic.
In the same report, it noted that the e-Commerce sector ensured continuity of livelihood with 39% of digital merchants said they believe they would not have survived the pandemic if not for digital platforms.
DTI had been aggressively pushing for the expansion of e-Commerce. In January 2020, the e-Commerce Philippines 2022 Roadmap was launched with DTI and the whole e-government. The Roadmap highlights strategies that will aid infrastructure, institutions, systems, and people in embracing an economy that operates in the digital landscape. With the battle cry “Basta e-Commerce MADALI,” the Market Access, Digitalization and Logistics integration (MADALI) Roadmap aims to promote easy, safe, secured, and reliable online transactions and translate it to easy commerce.
The roadmap showcases 20 strategies and 22 action agendas that embody the vision of the Philippine e-Commerce Roadmap 2016-2020. The 22 Action Agenda of the roadmap seek to improve on internet access, logistics, e-government, regulatory bodies, digital payments, consumer protection, digitalization of MSMEs, innovation, business-to-business (B2B) transactions, cross-border e-Commerce, intellectual capital, communication, the establishment of e-Commerce bureau, and knowledge management.
With a total of 805,190 business name registrations from 2020 up to November 2021, 112,465 of these are related to online retail or PSIC 47913. The number only reveals that the country is slowly penetrating the digital universe through online selling.
To aid the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in their digital transformation, the DTI spearheaded the CTRL+Biz Webinar series where 201 different topics in relation to e-Commerce were taught in 183 sessions to 40,395 participants nationwide. Topics included social media marketing, onboarding to digital platforms, creating strong e-marketplace presence, among many others.
“In adapting to the unprecedented crisis brought about by the pandemic, we, in DTI, have expanded our programs and initiatives in digitalization. We also commit to continuously provide our MSMEs with more opportunities arising from the rising digital economy,” Sec Lopez added.
