Islamabad High Court appealed to the ruling government of Pakistan, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, to submit its reply why the commerce has failed to bring Amazon and PayPal in the country as asked by one of the common man who filed petition in the court, on Saturday.
Hafeez Junaid filed a petition from Islamabad that says that e-commerce industries could not set up in Pakistan because of “flawed policies” that could not be implemented. The plaintiff explained that Data protective law of e-commerce policy 2019 is not practical; therefore there are problems in its establishment as the law is “vital” for growth of e-commerce.
Besides, he pointed out mistakes in consumer protection laws and said that China, Russia and other states have special provision laws with consumer protection laws to support e-commerce.
In the petition, Junaid further wrote that Amazon blocks people with Pakistan IP to log in to the website because the country has “insecure” methods of payments.
According to the petitioner, government has not taken any steps to negotiate with the payment and ecommerce giants that shows that government has failed to utilize the tools of “globalization and modernization”.
While giving facts, Junaid stated that e-commerce has grown to $4 trillion globally but Pakistan failed to take benefits from it because government is not interested to avail opportunities from the e-commerce giant that has 8.5 sellers and 2.1 active sellers.
Commerce and Investment Minister disclosed a week ago that he sent names of 38 exporters to US-based e-commerce giant for registration who belonged to the sectors of sports and surgical goods and house textiles. He told in a meeting that they would send names of exporters of other companies the sent names would be registered successfully. However, no results have been reported.
The petition of Junaid is very genuine. Pakistan is home of youngsters. Many of them have ideas to have their startups and decent businesses but due to limited platforms, they are unable to polish their business skills and mindsets. Besides, Pakistan is third country where are most freelancers. The majority of them face difficulties to get income from their clients because of having no PayPal.
It is appreciate-able step from IHC that they have given importance to the petition and asked government to submit answer. It can be hoped that there will be offices of Amazon and PayPal soon but it is also utopian mindset because Pakistan is nothing but a country under the rule of “Khalai Makhlooq”
