E-commerce services and digital economy - Japan

Japan attaches great importance to e-commerce and digital trade because ICT has significant potential to enable various actors to have better access to the global market, thereby facilitating trade worldwide. Over the past 40 years, Japan has assisted developing countries in the areas of ICT infrastructure and related human resource development, through financial aid and technical assistance.

In particular, Japan is willing to make contributions to bridging the infrastructure gap, which would become a bottleneck against global economic growth if not properly addressed. For this purpose, Japan is promoting “quality infrastructure” in collaboration with other countries and international organizations through “Partnership for Quality Infrastructure.”

One of the examples of Japan’s aid in this regard concerns optical submarine cables. Japan has an excellent track record over many years as an international supplier of the optical submarine cable which supports most of these infrastructures. Japan is currently providing support from fundraising to installation for a project to lay a high-capacity submarine cable between Angola and Brazil.

Japan’s ICT is also contributing to the optimization and increased the lifespan of existing public infrastructure. As a part of Myanmar’s postal service, Japan is working to digitize money order services. Through improving postal quality and realizing the creation of new businesses and new services based on cooperation with Japanese enterprises, the contribution is made to the socioeconomic development.