NAIROBI, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Reforms to improve the business environment contributing to Kenya's recent rise in the World Bank's Doing Business rankings is part of efforts to enhance the participation of technology companies to boost electronic commerce, a government official said.
"Technology becomes a major enabler in our efforts to improve local and international business," Peter Munya, cabinet secretary in the ministry of trade, industry and cooperatives, said on Monday evening during an event to launch preparations for hosting of the World Electronic Commerce Week from Dec. 10 to 14 in Nairobi.
The Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the European Union (EU) and the African Union Commission are jointly convening the world e-commerce week to discuss measures and strategies to improve global trade using digital platforms, according to the organizers.
"We see opportunity in terms of e-commerce helping us surmount some of the challenges we face around Africa," Munya said, referring to steps required to reduce cross-border barriers to trade using electronic trade platforms among them, OLX and Jumia, which are popular across the African region.
Mukhisa Kituyi, secretary general of UNCTAD, said the quality of investment opportunities have been growing consistently which justified the need to have key government decision-makers meeting to explore measures to harness digital technologies to accelerate sustainable development.
"We are convinced the struggle to banish extreme poverty will be won or lost in the Least Developed Countries which are mostly in Africa," said Kituyi.
"There is a clear message that the e-commerce is not an opportunity to expand the economic opportunities of the wealthy," he added.
Munya said the electronic trade summit offered an opportunity to grow its potential and spread benefits to Kenyan and African youth. "I endorse this conference and we are happy to host it," said Munya.
He said Kenya has taken steps to reform the business environment. This helped to move Nairobi in the global business rankings from position 80 to 61 in the latest Doing Business ranking issued early this month.
The east African nation was ranked highly at position 61 out of 190 countries for taking steps to adopt best practices in business regulation.
Kenya took steps to improve property registration, passed laws to protect the rights of minority shareholders in companies and used technology to simplify tax returns, according to the World Bank's Doing Business Ranking.
Due to the electronic tax filings, companies now spend just 179 hours instead of 185 days, as a result of tax reform and the injection of new electronic tax filing system known as i-tax.
Hanna Tetteh, director-general of the UN Office in Nairobi, said the UN was looking forward to the hosting of the event, which will bring together ministers of commerce to discuss business collaboration.
Tetteh said the growth of electronic commerce websites and other digital platforms demonstrated it could create access to markets.
She said Africa still faced challenges including low internet penetration with just 15 percent of the population with access to internet data and smart phones.
