At the same time, it is necessary to enhance capabilities of APEC member economies to support micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) taking part in cross border e-commerce in region and all around the world, facilitating the protection of private information through the implementation of APEC’s initiatives. 

With the increasing important role of e-commerce in enhancing competitiveness of enterprises, facilitating sustainable development and economic linkage in the region, APEC considered e-commerce as one of the priority for this year meeting agenda. According to the Ministry of Industry & Trade, cross-border e-commerce is one of the fastest developing sector in world commerce. Since the appearance of e-commerce 2 decades ago to the end of 2016, cross-border e-commerce (including Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C)) reached nearly 2 trillion USD globally. The Asia – Pacific region has the largest number of transaction, with West Europe and North America staying behind.

With regard to e-commerce in form of B2C, revenue of the Asia – Pacific region in 2016 reached 144 billion USD, contributing to 35.9% of the revenue from global B2C. This number is expected to increased to 467 billion USD and increase by 47.9% in 2020. Cross-border e-commerce is considered an important instrument for MSMEs in APEC to participate in the process of globalization, without the need of physical presence in a specific market to sell their products all over the world. 

Information from the Ministry of Industry & Trade showed that in Vietnam, the e-commerce market has a high growth rate from 25 – 35% per year, while the number of enterprises applying e-commerce in business activities has been equal or even exceeded some countries in the region. 

A survey on the e-commerce development conducted by the Ministry of Industry & Trade showed that the revenue from e-commerce in Vietnam in 2016 reached 5 billion USD, which is expected to maintain its average growth rate of 20% per years, and reaches 10 billion USD by 2020, contributing to 5% of total revenue from retail and services sector in Vietnam. 

Representative of the Vietnam E-commerce and Information Technology Agency said, in 2013 the number of accounts registered by companies was 1,923, in 2016, this number has increased 10 folds to 19,456. The number of accounts registered by individual also increased from 305 to 7,170. With an example on the shopping day Single Day of China beginning in 2007 and reached its peak in 2013. The result showed that it took 5 – 6 years to become a national shopping day. For Vietnam, the shopping event Online Friday has also begun its second phase, which is different to what happened 3 years ago.