Philippines: Future Technological Leader in Southeast Asia

The adaptation to the technology and network media of the Filipinos amidst the pandemic is rapid and unceasing. In fact, the country remains as the top user of the internet and social media across Southeast Asia according to the Digital Report in 2021. Ramon Lopez, Secretary of  Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) , believes that the Philippines can be a future technological leader in Southeast Asia. He also mentioned that e-commerce adoption in the Philippines rose to 80.2 percent this year compared to 70 percent in 2019 and 76 percent in 2020.

In 2020 statistics, more than half of all Business Name registration applications and other related transactions were processed in under eight minutes, and 83% in under an hour. Many of the country’s business name applicants also showed a shift in their payment habits, with 67 percent of registration costs paid using online payment methods vs the usual over-the-counter or DTI cashier approach. Business owners are also registering their businesses online and prefer digital payment, according to the DTI chief. It was noted that the registration outgrows 88,575 in 2020. The utilization of technology and media in online retail, delivery services, online entertainment, digital services, telehealth, work-from-home arrangements, and digital payments had helped the country to remain steady at the top.

Lopez highlighted that the establishment of e-Commerce Philippines 2022 Roadmap will help the country become a region’s technological leader. This roadmap envisions 1 million e-commerce businesses by 2022, up from half a million last year and intends to enhance a digitally literate workforce by providing for the widening e-commerce industry. For the ECGO, the DTI e-Commerce Office is collaborating with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), AIM-DBI Foundation, and incubator Dado Banatao.

Taking the lead in enabling the country’s various stakeholders to ensure that the people reap the benefits of e-commerce, including the creation of new jobs and employment, the government has continuously committed to it. Believing that everyone would be working together, the Philippines will be able to adapt to technology completely in the future and become one of the region’s technological leaders. Lopez as well emphasized that only a whole-of-society approach where all of us working together to rebuild better in the post-pandemic tomorrow can aid the country to be claimed as the future technologic leader across Southeast Asia.

Source:

DTI chief says PH can be future tech leader in Southeast Asia. Retrieved from Philippine News Agency website: https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1147953