Egypt Leaps 11 Positions in UN E-Commerce Ranking

The cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) said on Wednesday that Egypt jumped 11 spots on the UN e-commerce index at  the 102nd position from 113th last year.

Meantime, the Netherlands leads the UNCTAD's Business-to-Consumer E-commerce Index 2019 for the second consecutive year, followed by Switzerland.

The report showed that Europe continues to lead the e-commerce business, however, Singapore managed to reach third place and Australia ranked 10th.

The 2019 e-commerce index scores dozens of countries in their willingness to shop online, worth an estimated $ 3.9 trillion globally in 2017 (the latest official census), up 22% from the previous year.

The UNCTAD index ranks the willingness of 152 countries to engage in online commerce, each country's access to secure Internet servers, the reliability of postal services and infrastructure, the proportion of its population using the Internet, and the proportion of inpiduals who have an account with a financial institution or mobile payment service.

The 2019 edition of the index includes some notable changes from the previous year.

According to the UNCTAD, Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden dropped out of the top 10 list due to a decrease in their scores for secure servers and postal reliability (Iceland’s performance was particularly hampered by this indicator). Sweden also saw a drop in the portion of its population using the internet.

The three nations were replaced by Finland (jumping from 12th to fourth), Germany (bouncing from 16th to ninth) and Australia (moving from 11th to 10th).

Regarding the list of the top 10 developing economies, the main change was Chile’s fall from the group. The South American nation was replaced by Qatar, which rose in the ranks thanks to the increase of internet use in the country practically the entire nation (99.7% of the population) is now online, according to data from the transport and communications ministry.

Despite Chile’s fall in the index, it held on to its top spot among countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. Mauritius achieved the best score in sub-Saharan Africa. And Belarus got the highest marks among transition economies.

“Our B2C index shows how real and worrying the digital gap is between developed and developing countries,” says Shamika N. Sirimanne, director of UNCTAD’s unit that prepares the annual index.

For example, in half a dozen European nations, more than 80% of internet users make purchases online. But that proportion is below 10% in most low and lower middle-income countries.

“There is an urgent need to help less prepared countries improve their infrastructure and build trust among their population,” Ms. Sirimanne said.