KUALA LUMPUR: The e-commerce sector has the potential to lift Malaysia’s total trade to RM2 trillion this year, given the various incentives provided by the government.

Second International Trade and Industry Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan, said the government hoped more Malaysian businesses would embrace this new way, or tool of doing business around the world, as it would help improve the country’s trade.

“Last year, Malaysia recorded a total trade of RM1.77 trillion. This year, our target is RM2 trillion, and I hope the balance will come from e-commerce,” he told a media briefing after launching the Malaysia-China Cross Border e-Commerce Sharing Platform (MCESP) yesterday.

Ong said China was a huge market and currently Malaysia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 28 per cent of the country’s total trade in 2017.

The MCESP is a collaboration among ICBC (M) Sdn Bhd, SF Global Express (M) Sdn Bhd, HomeDeal.my, Linghang International (M) Sdn Bhd, and eBusiness Association of Malaysia.

The online multi-channel and resource-sharing platform aims to assist Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) participate in the e-commerce cooperation and development between Malaysia and China.

MCESP Secretary-General, Michael Jan, said the products would first go through Malaysia’s local e-commerce platform, HomeDeal, before entering ICBC Mall’s online platform, Rong E Gou, to access the Chinese market.

“Malaysian SMEs require complete guidance to manoeuvre China’s huge market.

“Therefore, we designed the MCESP to have a structure that provides an A-to-Z channel for local SMEs with minimal risk and cost,” he said.

He said China’s huge market demand presented unprecedented opportunities for the development of cross-border e-commerce, where, according to the monitoring data from the E-commerce Research Centre, China’s cross-border e-commerce transactions in the first half of 2017 stood at RMB3.6 trillion (RMB1=RM0.61), a 30.7 per cent increase year-on-year.

In 2017, the overall e-commerce market revenue reached US$1 billion (US$1=RM3.87), with online shoppers spending an average of US$74 per person.

By 2021, per capita spending was expected to increase to US$129, and the total revenue of the e-commerce market was expected to reach US$2.6 billion. — Bernama