Around the world, we need to build trust and confidence in the electronic marketplace, by addressing security, privacy and consumer protection. These issues are on the agenda for the Ministerial. The second key issue is to clarify electronic marketplace rules, and define them in a way that will facilitate global commerce. The body of rules governing the paper-based marketplace began to evolve before global trade became a driving economic force. Each nation set its domestic rules.
Electronic commerce begins with a global marketplace.
International transactions are becoming more commonplace every day on a technology that knows no borders. If we want to keep that global marketplace open, we want competition that is fair, both on the information highway, and between electronic and more traditional forms of commerce. A third issue is to strengthen the capacity of the information infrastructure. The existing Internet networks may not be able to support the exponential growth of electronic commerce. Internet traffic will soon consume half of the available bandwidth on networks worldwide, increasing to 90 percent by 2002.