In a recent eCommerce Bytes article, Brian Bieron, Head of eBay Inc.’s Public Policy Lab, discussed the important of encouraging small business cross border trade and the opportunities that digital technology creates for small businesses looking to expand globally. According to a recent eBay Inc. study, 97 percent of “commercial sellers” on eBay engage in exporting.
A report, recently released by the Global McKinsey Institute (GMI), studied the complex web of global flows of people, goods, services, finance and data and explored the significance of those flows to nations, companies and individuals. In addition, the report poses several important questions to policymakers as they debate these issues. eBay Inc. had the opportunity to contribute research and lend our expertise to the report.
Members of Parliament: Christian Flisek, Matthias Ilgen, Dieter Janecek, Lars Klingbeil, Stephan Mayer, Özcan Mutlu, Dr. Tim Ostermann, Dr. Joachim Pfeiffer, Dr. Jens Zimmermann
Industry Leaders: Dr. Nikolaus Lindner, eBay Inc. Government Relations; Dr. Gunnar Bender, Facebook Germany; Mike Cosse, SAP; Dr. Matthias Sachs, Microsoft; Benjamin Brake, IBM; Ansgar Baums, HP; Andreas Povel, AmCham Germany; Sven Harraß, AmCham Germany; Bernhard Abels, Deputy Consul General, German Consulate, San Francisco
This week, eBay Inc. participated in a ministerial conference on Cross Border Trade organized by the French Ministry of Economy and Digital Affairs. More than 280 people attended the conference, including French SMEs interested in exporting, representatives of French administrations, and digital trade association representatives.
A March 2014 report by the consultancy firm Dalberg is a first attempt to better understand the economic impact of Internet openness. The report, which is a comprehensive effort to define the core attributes of an open Internet, describes different types of restrictions that inhibit its openness and analyzes how Internet openness benefits the economy in terms of the ICT sector, commerce, investment, innovation and social gains.
This week, representatives from eBay Inc.’s Public Policy Lab joined regulatory experts from academia, the private and public sector, and organizations to discuss better trade regulation at the OECD’s International Business Dialogue in Paris. The event, focused on Better Regulation to Enhance Trade, aimed to come up with concrete proposals for addressing the most urgent regulatory obstacles to international trade, from the business perspective.
Last week, representatives from eBay Inc. Southeast Asia Government Relations participated in the ASEAN Finance Minister’s Meeting (AFMM) as part of the US-ASEAN Business Council delegation. They participated to engage ASEAN Ministers on issues of regional financial inclusion, and shared high level overviews of how PayPal, as an innovative payment method, is able to support the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 (AEC15) vision of financial inclusion by lowering the barriers for SMEs to export.
On April 8, UK Minister for the Cabinet Office, Rt Hon Francis Maude MP, and a delegation of UK Government officials joined PayPal President, David Marcus, and key eBay Inc. representatives to discuss a range of issues, including PayPal’s position as an innovative, world class technology company, a global leader in mobile payments, and a leader managing risk and fraud. The Minister and his team were keen to learn from eBay Inc.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) must continue challenging traditional thinking in trade facilitation. That is the message you get when combining the conclusions of a WTO working paper with this week’s presentation by Hanne Melin of eBay’s Public Policy Lab in Geneva.
Last week, the EU Commission held the 2014 “EU Consumer Summit”, which was focused on EU consumers in the digital era. Currently, there are more than 790 million mobile phone subscriptions in Europe and the Internet is used by more than 370 million EU citizens. More than half of EU consumers have made at least one online purchase in the last twelve months and 80% of online consumers are using price comparison websites to find better deals.