India has submitted two papers on ecommerce at the WTO, one on collaborating on consumer protection and the other on role of digital public infrastructure, reported Businessline.
- This would provide an “alternative paradigm’’ to discussions at the multilateral forum currently dominated by a group of countries in a plurilateral mode on rule- making in ecommerce.
- At present, a group of countries, dominated by developed nations, is holding plurilateral discussions on rule making in ecommerce at the WTO.
- India and several other developing countries are not part of the talk as they argue that the implications of ecommerce on market structures and technical issues such as data storage, transfer of technology and loss of traditional jobs, need to be fully understood first.
Paper on protection of consumer interest in e-commerce
- It urges members to work together on addressing issues such as information asymmetry, tackling fakes and counterfeits, data protection, management of returns and dispute resolution.
- The idea is to trigger discussion on the important issue of consumer protection in ecommerce, including cross border transactions.
Paper on ‘Role of digital public infrastructure (DPI) in promoting ecommerce’
- In this paper, India has presented an approach to overcome the challenge of digital divide.
- The paper highlights various issues limiting the adoption and use of ecommerce, the paradigm of DPI, and ideal features of a good DPI.
- The paper also highlights examples from India such as UPI, CoWIN and ONDC.
