Phnom Penh, 8 October 2020: ERIA’s Capacity Building Programme launched its second series of online workshops on e-commerce. The nine modules, designed for the Cambodian government officials, will be held over two months in October and November 2020.

The e-workshop series kicked off on the 5 October with a virtual introduction. The session was opened by Mr LONG Kemvichet, Deputy Director-General from the Department of International Trade, Ministry of Commerce, Cambodia, and Mr Anthony Samson, Second Secretary from the Australian Embassy in Cambodia. Mr Jeremy Gross, ERIA’s Director of Capacity Building, moderated the introduction session.

In his welcoming remarks, Mr LONG Kemvichet, stated the importance of this e-workshop to deepen officials’ understanding and to further develop the national e-commerce strategy. He also mentioned the recent launch of the digital economy framework initiative in Cambodia as the drive to promote an inclusive digital economy for SME and MSMEs participation. He thanked the Australian Government for ERIA’s Capacity Building Program and encouraged officials to obtain the benefits of this workshop.

Mr Anthony Samson noted that Australia has supported inclusive digital economy development through partnerships with Cambodian officials. He highlighted the Australia e-commerce aid for trade program that aims to accelerate the regulatory framework in Cambodia. He took note of the additional module on women and e-commerce in this on-line course that will promote inclusive economic development in Cambodia.

The session was continued by Mr Sven Callebaut, the lead facilitator of the workshop series, and asked Dr Deborah Elms of the Asian Trade Centre, Mr Danny Burrows of TradeWorthy, and Mr Rahul Bhatnagar, an e-commerce and digital economy strategic consultant, contributing experts to this course, to introduce themselves.

Materials for Module 1, The basics of e-commerce, were posted on 5 October. A live session to discuss the materials was then held on 7 October, facilitated by Mr Rahul Bhatnagar. This was an opportunity to talk in more detail about the contents of the module and respond to questions from the participants. Discussions were held around: (i)E-commerce and Global Value Chain (ii) Law and regulatory of E-commerce; (iii) E-Commerce and Taxation Data Policy; and (iii) Government’s role to accelerate the growth of E-commerce and digital economy in Cambodia.

Ms Listi Irawati, Programme Manager at the Australian Mission to ASEAN, closed the session on by congratulating ERIA for this online training programme and wishing participants well for the programme.

The module continued on 8 October with participants undertaking online tests based on the materials. The results were posted on the 10 October. Altogether, 22 officials are participating in this online course.