Background Briefing Paper – Asia Pacific Payments and e-Commerce: Cross-Border Trade and Data Flows

Background Briefing Paper – Asia Pacific Payments and e-Commerce: Cross-Border Trade and Data Flows

A short briefing paper on e-Payments and e-Commerce in Asia Pacific, that was used for our Roundtable event on July 2014: APEC-TRPC Forum: Asia Pacific Payments and e-Commerce

Introduction

“B2C e-commerce sales in Asia-Pacific grew more than 33% to USD332.46 billion in 2012. This year, the region will see sales increase by more than 30% to over USD433 billion—or more than one-third of all global B2C e-commerce sales.” (eMarketer, February,2013[1])
Global cross-border B2C e-commerce sales have exceeded USD1 trillion for the first time according to estimates from eMarteter,[2] and Asia Pacific was due to surpass North America by end-2013 to become the world’s No. 1 market for B2C ecommerce sales.
East Asia, namely Greater-China, Japan and South Korea, dominates Asia’s e-commerce markets. In South-East Asia, nearly 50% of e-commerce is generated by Singapore and Malaysia, despite accounting for 8% of the region’s population. 55% of Singapore’s e-commerce and 40% of Malaysia’s e-commerce is cross-border.[3] The following graphic illustrates the focus and the growth of cross-border payments from Singapore to Asia using PayPal.[4]


[1] eMarketer, “Ecommerce Sales Topped $1 Trillion for First Time in 2012”, 5 Feb 2013, https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Ecommerce-Sales-Topped-1-Trillion-First-Time-2012/1009649#sthash.JoyRffz9.dpuf
[2] ibid
[3] Cross-border eCommerce Community website https://www.crossborder-ecommerce.com
[4] PayPal presentation to TRPC-IIC Forum, “TRPC Forum: Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Trade, ICTs and the Internet”, Sept 2013, https://trpc.accesspartnership.com/old_archive/trade-icts-and-the-internet/

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