e-Commerce

January 2003

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications will assist the private-sector to standardize their communications methods and product codes by 2005, to promote E-commerce. To start with, the ministry will set up a joint study group in January with firms, including Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sony Corp. and the Aeon Co. group, to standardize their online commerce procedures in harmonizing with those in Western countries. The group will launch an online commerce experiment using common procedures and standards by the end of January. Currently, online commerce systems developed by Japanese companies are not connectable due to differences in data transmission methods, product identification codes and other factors. Smaller firms have had to prepare different terminals and software packages to participate in different online commerce systems. This situation hampered the growth of e-commerce among different corporate groupings in Japan or between Japanese and foreign companies. In the U.S. and Europe, online commerce procedures are being standardized under the leadership of the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI), to which distribution industry groups as well as electronics parts manufacturers belong. GCI aims to standardize e-commerce procedures by 2005 and use its common methods as global standards. The posts ministry will also strive to establish a Japanese version of the online commerce standardization group in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, enabling all Japanese firms to use the common standards by 2005. The ministry also hopes that the group will actively participate in building global online commerce standards in the future, reflecting some Japanese standards in global methods. The ministry will also encourage domestic companies to develop online commerce software, using planned tax reductions on investment of information technology. (January 6, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun)