The High Court in Islamabad have given the federal government just two weeks to submit there reply over the absence on professional and world class quality E-commerce platforms in Pakistan. Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court (IHC) , Athar Minallah, has sent out notices to the commerce and information technology sectors in regard to their failure in establishing policies and meeting requirements quoted in the e-commerce policy, which has kept mega-companies like Paypal and Amazon from starting in a country such as Pakistan.
Notices have been issued in regards to petition which was filed by a, Hafeez Junaid, someone who feels enraged from the lack of initiative taken by the government and believes that flawed policies and non-implementation were the reason why major e-commerce stay away from Pakistan. He also contended that it was due to insecure payment methods that Pakistanis are unable to access the world’s largest e-commerce platform. He has also informed the high court that for much over a decade, the major US company, Amazon have blocked anyone with an IP from Pakistan to log in to the website to set up their own market.
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As of the moment, there are currently no negotiations or offers made to start help Amazon and PayPal to start operations in Pakistan which should be considered an alarming situation. It goes to show that the federal government have failed to take any necessary and logical steps to modernize and globalized the economy of Pakistan. 8t should be noted that in the last decade or so the e-commerce industry has seen substantial growth, to over $4 trillion globally but while other countries have reaped the benefits form this growth, Pakistan continues to stand still and has failed to avail the opportunities on offer because of a lack of interest at the government level, which shows the incompetence of the government as well.
The petitioner has maintained that the e-commerce policy 2019 is flawed and deceptive and also believes the data protection law, which is vital for healthy e-commerce growth anywhere in the world, is less than a practical situation for Pakistan. It is also interesting to see that the new development has come only a few days after the special advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood, disclosed that Pakistan is in process of registering the country’s good sellers with US e-commerce giant Amazon. The country has sent a list of 38 exporters for registration, he added, if this deal is struck, it should help Pakistan’s economy to grow further and shall also create new opportunities for businesses and the people of Pakistan, employment opportunities, start ups and whatnot, all can be achieved form a better policy making from the government.
