Commerce minister Suresh Prabhu to chair first meeting of e-commerce think tank on Tuesday

Commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu will chair the first meeting of the think tank setup to frame a national policy on e-commerce on Tuesday.

“The think tank on the Framework for National Policy on E-commerce will seek to collectively deliberate the challenges confronting India in the arena of digital economy with a view to developing recommendations for a comprehensive and overarching national policy on e-commerce,” department of commerce said in a statement on Monday.

Setup by the department of commerce, the think tank comprises representatives from fifty organisations- both government and private, to provide a forum to nurture domestic firms and create jobs in e-commerce.

As per the statement, some of the issues that will be discussed by the think tank include: physical and digital infrastructure, regulatory regime, taxation policy, data flows, server localisation, intellectual property rights protection, FDI, technology flows, responding to disruptions in industrial organisation, need for skill development and trade-related aspects.

“Developments on e-commerce at the World Trade Organisation and evolving appropriate national position on the underlying issues, would be another important dimension of the discussions of the think tank on the Framework for National Policy on E-commerce,” it said.