World E-Commerce Alliance

As economies become more interdependent, instances of militarized conflict are likely to decrease. During the past decade, e-commerce has been growing rapidly to become a new driving force of the world economy. With the advancement of new technologies, digital retailing is connecting economies and some 360 million consumers across the globe. China, with its vast market size and an emerging 400 million strong middle class, spearheads the online shopping momentum globally. However, despite the great potential e-commerce has shown in boosting global growth, there remain many issues that require transnational cooperation – data privacy, quality standards, customs clearance, after sales service, to name a few. A World E-commerce Alliance will enable countries to communicate problems arising from the digitalization of the world economy and seek multilateral standards and solutions. Today’s global trade is heavily bending on knowledge and service, a brand of global governance that captures the trends and develops regulatory capacity is a desideratum. The proposed World E-commerce Alliance represents the first step toward enhancing multilateral effort to manage the forces of knowledge and innovation on a global scale.