Role of electronic-commerce in the growth of Tunisian economy

Abstract

Tunisia has encouraged and enhanced the effective use of information technologies, including the Internet by making them widely accessible. The government started an action plan in 1997 to spread Internet connections to all classes of the community. In the meantime the government understood the benefits provided by e-commerce and established an electronic commerce taskforce (from the government and the private sectors) to study the implementation of e-commerce in Tunisia. Following that, six pilot projects about various Tunisian-made products and services were launched online. Today e-commerce services covering a wide range of Tunisian products including crafts, foodstuffs (dates, olive oil, and desserts), textiles, tourist services, stamps, and hotel reservations. A direct result of this general atmosphere of e-commerce is the emergence of trade exponentially as an important sector in the Tunisian economy. The incorporation of information technology as an important ingredient of its economy resulted in a steady growth of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Its exponential adoption of the Internet and its applications, principally e-commerce, seemingly contributed to the Tunisian economic growth.