Etisalat calls for a unified commitment to ecommerce across the GCC

This call was made during the 1st eCommerce Conference in the GCC held in Abu Dhabi between 20th and 21st November 2005 under the patronage of HH General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister, and organized by HE Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, UAE Minister of Economy and Planning. The conference saw the participation of delegations from the union of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of GCC states and prominent regional entities in the fields of IT and ecommerce.

Etisalat played a key role by sponsoring this event, and participated with eCompany and Etisalat Academy. Representatives of the Corporation led some of the sessions that were part of this event.

Nasser Bin Obood, Deputy CEO, Etisalat, commended the initiative and said: "This event has come at a most relevant time- when e-Commerce is gaining immense popularity in the world at large as well as in the Middle East and the GCC states in particular. I take pride in pointing out that the UAE has shown great growth in this sector, under its visionary leadership. The foundation for this has been laid around three decades ago, with the setting up of an efficient network infrastructure, and continues with the constant upgrading of the same."

"High-speed Internet is now reality in almost every corner of the country, allowing UAE to be among the pioneers in making a smooth transition towards e-Commerce. A prime example is the e-Government initiative, a venture that aims to automate all transactions and departmental processes- all to provide ease of use and convenience to the public", he added.

eCompany ,the Internet Services and ICT arm of Etisalat participated with two key speakers, Tariq Habib, Senior Manager, eCompany who participated in a panel discussion focused on "Harnessing Global eTrade for GCC" and Saoud Al Shamsi ,Sales Manager, eCompany who participated in a session entitled "Cyber Blazers".

According to Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, General Manager, eCompany:

"We are delighted at this opportunity to support this first ever GCC eCommerce Conference. The event has provided us with an excellent opportunity to exchange views and learn from other participants at the event. eCompany has been deeply involved as a service provider with eCommerce on several fronts in the UAE and the region such as in Online Payments, where we have been very proactive in the drive towards making online payment secure through robust end-user identification mechanisms."

"eCompany is uniquely positioned to play a key technology provider role by supporting all components of the electronic commerce value chain and we will do all we can to bring the latest technology to the market. On the payments front, online payment transactions handled by us grew by 549 % in the first nine months of 2005, compared to the same period last year."

"On the Internet access side, eCompany has been working on comprehensive measures to increase Internet penetration which is a key driver for eCommerce to expand. Today Internet usage penetration in the UAE stands at 47.2%. Our major focus in this area is to increase penetration levels by making broadband more attractive and affordable to our customers so that they can benefit from always-on, secure and high-speed Internet connectivity. We are targeting 100,000 broadband subscribers by end 2005."

Dr. Doa'a Fares, General Manager, Etisalat Academy, spoke on the second day and pointed out that Arabic content on the Internet is relatively low. 30% of the total Arabic content on the Internet focuses on religious topics, 40% on general topics, and 30% on entertainment.

Dr. Fares called to unify efforts in the Arab world to introduce quality Arabic content on the Internet, and to exchange experiences in doing so. Some topics that would really add to the variety of Arabic content on the Internet would include information on medicine, history, literature and other important topics.