The Universal Postal Union (UPU) and Tunisia have signed an agreement for the development of e-commerce in the country under the so-called "Ecom@Africa” project initiative.
Launched by the UPU, Ecom@Africa aims to assist African countries to develop and facilitate online trade using the postal network thus giving micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) better access to local international markets.
As part of the project, Africa will establish hubs located in its Eastern, Southern, Western, Central and Northern regions, from which other spokes can be created to serve the entire continent.
The agreement signed last week follows plans unveiled by the UPU and the Tunisian government earlier this year to establish a regional e-commerce hub for Northern Africa.
“The project is part of a national strategy for the facilitation of administrative procedures for SMEs, especially those having export activities,” Mohamed Anouar Maârouf, Tunisian Minister for Communications Technology and Digital Economy, said back in January confirming that Tunisia had all the assets needed to establish the hub.
The cooperation agreement formalises the commitment to implement the Ecom@Africa Tunisian platform, the UPU said in a statement. Over the last months, experts from the UPU and Tunisia have been setting up suitable technical and operational structures to roll out the project.
Both parties said that the initiative represents “an important step to enable the Post contribute more to the national development of the country”.
The signing of the agreement makes Tunisia the first country among the six selected to pioneer the project. Others are Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco and South Africa.
The UPU has also received requests from Djibouti and Uganda to assist them in setting up e-commerce platforms for their postal operators. The project will later be replicated in other parts of the world.
