The development of the nation's online shopping industry will focus on five major aspects—cross-border transactions, capital, innovation, cash flow and talent—the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) stated at the second meeting of the e-commerce development taskforce, convened today (October 28) at the Executive Yuan.
In addition to taking inventory of industry needs and new technological progress in the field and advancing existing initiatives, the MOEA will launch the following new measures in these five areas next year:
Cross-border transactions: The ministry will assist domestic online purchasing platform operators to make inroads into the markets of mainland China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in order to increase exports of Taiwanese products. The MOEA will collaborate with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to increase cross-border transactions by facilitating the purchasing of Taiwanese goods online by foreign tourists who first bought these products while traveling in Taiwan.
■ Raising capital: The ministry will discuss with the Gretai Securities Market the addition of a new category of listed companies, "online services and e-commerce," to help such businesses get listed on Taiwan's stock exchanges.
■ Innovation: The government will link research and development with innovation resources to assist operators with new technology applications as well as encourage advancement of e-commerce technology.
■ Cash flow: The government will encourage innovative payment services and assist in promoting and popularizing various consumer-end payment mechanisms.
■ Talent: In order to help online businesses attract suitable talent, the MOEA will expand its recruitment efforts and introduce courses in colleges and universities on opening online stores. The industrial workforce training and vocational training presently conducted by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labor will continue to contribute to this effort, as well.
Reports at today's meeting covered issues such as:
- The state of the nation's online shopping industry and future promotional strategies.
- Advance ordering of food and food products, with direct delivery and sales from production sites.
- Establishment of maritime express handling units and provision of swift, convenient, round-the-clock customs clearance.
- Analysis of the integration of the government's open data with the e-commerce industry.
To facilitate the sales of agricultural and fishery products online, the Council of Agriculture (COA) will work with other agencies to help remove the barriers to fresh Taiwanese agricultural products' entry into overseas markets and develop an "online to offline" business model.
Moreover, the MOEA will assist enterprises to improve their cold-chain logistics services in order to grow online business for agricultural and fishery products.
The maritime express handling units promoted by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) will help set up comprehensive and integrated sea and air shipping operations, which will offer enterprises convenient, economic, safe and rapid custom clearance services.
In order to increase Taiwan's cross-border transaction volume, the Executive Yuan directed the MOEA, COA, and other related agencies to report on the barriers encountered in cross-border transactions and their respective solutions at the next meeting. The MOF and the MOEA's Bureau of Foreign Trade were asked to study the viability of developing a cross-border commodity customs clearance monitoring system and a cross-border online transaction platform for exporting Taiwanese products, respectively.
Since the government's open data can be used by e-commerce businesses for marketing analysis and product information, the Executive Yuan assigned the National Development Council to coordinate various agencies' open data and encourage the private sector to develop applications of added value. The combination of the strengths of the public and private sectors is expected to help nurture more innovative application services.
Minister without Portfolio Tsai Yu-ling convened the meeting, having been assigned to oversee the taskforce by Premier Jiang Yi-huah. The task force consists of deputies of 15 related government agencies, who are delegated to guide relevant inter-agency coordination, resource integration, and legal and regulatory adjustments in order to accelerate the development of the nation's e-commerce.
Tsai noted that the number of Internet users worldwide has continued to rise, and individuals and corporations alike will face different opportunities and challenges in the future. Hence, the government must gather opinions from industries with regard to different developmental trends in both the real and virtual worlds, in line with newly emerging online equipment and technologies, to go about formulating and adjusting related policies, she indicated.
The next meeting will focus on interdisciplinary issues such as booking travel schedules and catering online, introducing electronic receipts to businesses, and the OpenStreetMap, Tsai said. The relevant ministries will report the current strategies for industry development, compare Taiwan's circumstances with international trends, take inventory of difficulties the industry faces, and propose countermeasures after cross-ministry coordination.