Common standards in the ASEAN region will allow businesses to operate across borders without having to change their business models, heard attendees at a workshop on digital trade standards to facilitate the digital economy in ASEAN held in Ha Noi on Thursday.
The Southeast Asia Economic Report 2022 by Google, Temasek & Bain showed that the total number of ASEAN internet users has increased by about 20 million people to 460 million people by 2022. The size of ASEAN's internet economy is expected to increase by about 20 per cent to reach US$194 billion in 2022, nearly doubling in three years from 2019 to 2022.
ASEAN is a dynamically developing region with a young population, a large number of internet users, and the ability to quickly adapt to the development of digital commerce in the future.
According to Viet Nam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (iDEA) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in fact, digital trade has strongly enhanced trade within ASEAN. The common standards could help further promote regional trade.
Accepted international standards will be a more effective alternative to legal regulations, because legal regulations often take a long time to see results. This allows member countries' economies to readily join different supply chains without the need for compliance modifications.
“Accepted international standards allow an enterprise to combine operations from one locality to another without having to adjust business methods, models and practices,” said Lai Viet Anh, Deputy Director of Viet Nam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency.
The accepted international standards could benefit the entire ASEAN region, helping the region develop trade relations with economies within and outside of the region.
However, in order to maximise the benefits from the huge growth potential of digital trade, Anh said ASEAN and each member country will need to look at trade in terms of a global and regional approach. Member countries should promote domestic policy, enhance interoperability to complete cross-border transactions, and reduce barriers to trade through digitalisation.
“ASEAN should not develop disparate technical systems that are incompatible with each other or that differ from regulatory and governance that create incompatibility across the region and with other trading partners. Accordingly, ASEAN should consider common standards and harmonisation with each member country and the whole region for digital trade," she added.
Nguyen Van Khoi, Head of the Directorate of Standards, Metrology and Quality’s Standards Department, said the country should develop a national standardisation strategy, prioritise the development of Vietnamese standards for Viet Nam's digital commerce and digital economy such as IoT, AI, e-commerce, logistic, traceability, and smart manufacturing.
In addition, Viet Nam should have policies to encourage and support businesses in their activities to develop and apply national and international standards.
In the context of the strong development of digital technology, internet and e-commerce, in April 2020, ASEAN established the Digital Trade Standards and Conformance Working Group (DTSCWG) under the ASEAN Consultative Committee for Standards and Quality (ACCSQ), aims to promote harmonisation, standardisation and conformity assessment of digital trade in ASEAN.
The DTSCWG's 2021-25 working programme has been approved by ACCSQ including six priority contents related to standards and conformity in digital commerce. — VNS