Some 200 statistical experts from 27 countries (areas) are gathering in Singapore to explore ways to develop acceptable and world-wide standards and protocols on e-commerce with a view to achieve uniformity, consistency and comparability in e-commerce statistics everywhere.

Speaking at the opening of the three-day conference on the measurement of electronic commerce, Singapore Acting Minister for Communications & Information Technology and Minister of State for National Development John Chen attached importance to the research on measuring e-commerce, saying it is crucial that measurement issues are highlighted and a set of tools and standards be developed for measuring e-commerce in a bid to gauge the impact of e-commerce on the economy.

Noting that the lack of an international standard definition on e-commerce has led to widely disparate statistics on e-commerce and generated much difficulty in drawing comparison between different sources of information, Chen emphasized the need to develop a common framework for conducting e-commerce surveys, standardize concepts &definitions and develop a uniform questionnaire for collecting information relating to e-commerce.

According to Chen, e-commerce is growing rapidly with the global number of internet users expected to reach 300 million and the total e-commerce transactions projected to exceed one trillion US dollars by 2002.

In the case of Singapore, Chen said 96 percent of large enterprises and 86 percent of small enterprises are equipped with internet access and 61 percent of large firms and 32 small enterprises have their own websites.

Chen also said Singapore will further strengthen its support for commerce developments by "encouraging academia, consultants and business to take up thought leadership projects on Singapore and the region", "encouraging leading e-commerce research companies to be based in Singapore" with a view to build the country's research capability, "facilitating and generating forums for discussion on the latest thinking" and continuing to excel and taking great leadership at international policy fora. (Xinhua)