DTI roadmap aims to double e-commerce contribution to economy

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) seeks to double the contribution of e-commerce to the economy to P1.2 trillion by 2022, from nearly P600 billion in 2020.Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez announced this target as he unveiled last Friday the latest roadmap for the e-commerce sector, which played a critical role during the pandemic.

“From a baseline of P599 billion that e-commerce contributed to our economy in 2020—equivalent to 3.4 percent of GDP (gross domestic product)—our target is to increase this to P850 billion by 2021 or 4.3 percent of GDP and P1.2 trillion or 5.5 percent of GDP by 2022,” Lopez said in an online event. The DTI, however, could not say how much e-commerce grew last year compared to previous years’ levels.

In the earlier roadmap, the DTI said e-commerce contributed 10 percent of the GDP in 2015, which it was hoping to raise to 25 percent by 2020, a copy of the publicly available document showed. DTI’s latest roadmap, however, showed the sector’s share to 2020 GDP at only 3.4 precent of GDP—smaller than in 2015—despite the boom in e-commerce during the pandemic. When asked to reconcile the difference between the two, Lopez did not give a clear answer.

In a viber message, he was asked if this meant the share of e-commerce to GDP shrunk last year. To this he answered:

“No. The difference is in the definition. [In 2016], the team that did the first run [made]very few references and methodologies for measuring the contribution of e-commerce to GDP. Now there are a lot of cooperation and efforts in measuring e-commerce,” he said.

“We believe we now have a more precise way of measuring the contribution [of e-commerce to the economy] and make projections accordingly,” he added. In a press conference, Lopez was again asked how the numbers should be put in context. He answered, “what’s important is not the number, but the actions that would be undertaken.” INQ