Regulation of digital markets in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries is underdeveloped, being mostly covered by general laws not originally intended for the digital era. Regulations on long-standing digital policies, such as e-documents and e-signatures, are found throughout the region, but even those frameworks are largely outdated and incomplete. Only a handful of countries have advanced in most key regulations for digital markets, but comprehensive and up-to-date regulatory solutions are only found in a few countries in the region, notably Qatar, Bahrain, and Morocco, while others, like Lebanon and Tunisia, also provide comprehensive regulations, albeit with small gaps. Digital regulation is virtually inexistent in a few countries like Iraq, Jordan, UAE, and Kuwait, whose frameworks are severely outdated (in areas like electronic transactions) or stemming from broader frameworks not designed for current digital markets (on data governance and intermediary liability). For a quick attempt to catch up on digital regulations, these countries could adopt the approach of Lebanon, which recently introduced a law on e-commerce tackling multiple regulatory policies at once, from e-signature to intermediary liability. Most countries in the region, including Lebanon, as well as Oman, Jordan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and UAE would benefit from detailed, specific regulations to expand the broad frameworks already in place, as well as new frameworks to address current gaps.

# A. Approach and methodology

In what follows, this study reviews the main policy areas that build the regulatory framework for digital markets for countries in the MENA region. The study considers a set of regulatory areas of central importance to digital markets and assesses the domestic regulatory frameworks in light of recent international trends and regulatory models. In particular, the study addresses electronic documentation and signature; online consumer protection; data governance; cybersecurity; and intermediary liability regulations.

To guide the analysis, the study draws on a pilot database for regulation on digital trade in 40 countries.<sup>1</sup> The data are based on the review of laws and regulations relating to electronic documentation and signature; online consumer protection; data governance; cybersecurity; and intermediary liability regulations in MENA countries as well as over 20 comparator countries. This provides information on the regulatory stances of the different countries on a selected set of key provisions relevant to trade policy. At the same time, the codification of the regulatory frameworks allows to translate that regulatory information into dummy variables or into a Digital Trade Regulatory Readiness Index to be used in economic analysis.

The study offers an overall assessment of how comprehensive and up to date the regulatory framework for digital trade is. The different regulatory areas under review have in common that, taken together, they offer a set of basic rules that create tools for remote transactions (edocument and e-signature) or clarify conditions of digital transactions that enhance consumers’ (online consumer protection; data governance and cybersecurity) and business’ (intermediary liability) trust. Importantly, however, there are a number of additional policies relevant to digital trade that are not covered in the current study: regulations related to competition policy, taxation, e-payments, as well as the conditions for business licenses, which can also make or break a conducive framework for digital businesses.

> 1 See Annex 1 for details.

2