RIYADH, 25 April — Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, will inaugurate here on May 7 an e-commerce conference, billed as the Middle East’s biggest IT event with 30 internationally renowned companies represented.
The conference, which will be held at the King Faisal Conference Hall, is being jointly organized by King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology, the Ministry of Commerce and the Riyadh Exhibitions Company.
The Saudi Research and Publishing Co., represented by Arab News, Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Eqtesadiah, is among 40 leading national and international companies supporting the event. A major e-commerce exhibition will be held simultaneously at the Riyadh Exhibition Center from May 7 to 10.
Dr. Abdullah Al-Rasheed, vice president of KACST for Scientific Research, said e-commerce was set for phenomenal growth in the Kingdom.
According to official statistics, the level of e-commerce in the Kingdom is expected to increase from $1.7 billion next year to $4.03 billion by 2005. Worldwide, electronic trade stood at $500 billion this year, with Europe accounting for $134 billion out of the total. Europe, the United States and Japan are responsible for 95 percent of the global electronic trade, while the rest of the world contributes the remaining five percent.
Robert A. Peaslee, commercial officer at the US Embassy, said business-to-business e-commerce in the US was projected to grow to a record level of $2.7 trillion by the end of 2004. However, the Gartner Group, which specializes in forecasting e-commerce growth, has put the figure at $7 trillion.
It is estimated that expatriates comprise 90 percent of the work force engaged in e-commerce in the Kingdom. With some 1,000 students graduating from the Kingdom’s IT colleges annually, it will take a long time before they replace the expatriate workers.
Dr. Al-Rasheed said the e-commerce conference would open new horizons for the application of IT. It would also benefit local companies in upgrading their own skills, since many IT and e-commerce specialists from the Kingdom and abroad will be attending the conference.
Fahd Al-Fawaz, vice president of the Saudi Telecom Company, said they were trying to support their customers in the use of e-commerce by building the IT infrastructure and also by bringing Internet technology within their reach.
Basil Al-Jabr, head of the e-commerce committee at the Ministry of Commerce, said regulations governing e-commerce were being fine-tuned. He said the GCC states would coordinate among themselves to promote e-commerce in the region and were in the process of setting up a special committee to do this.
Asked if e-commerce could pose any security risk to those engaged in credit card-based transactions, he said there were adequate safeguards built into the system for this mode of business. These security solutions have been provided by e-merchants and also by ISPs.
Khaled Al-Qari of the Riyadh Exhibitions Co. said professionals, who alone are eligible to attend the conference, could visit the company’s website www.recexpo.com or e-mail them at [email protected] for details. With 60 percent of the conference seats sold, he recommended early application.
