© International Trade Centre, International Trade Forum
- Issue 2/2003
Ecuador will become the 25th country to join ITC's E-Trade
Bridge Programme since it was launched in May 2002.
ITC is organizing a 'Kick-Off' meeting to launch the programme
(Quito, 17-19 November 2003), in cooperation with its national
partner agency, Fundación Esquel. This non-governmental
organization has been active in improving the lives of the poor
through information and communications technology (ICT).
Harness technology for
development
The E-Trade Bridge Programme assists small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) to harness ICT to improve their international
competitiveness. The Kick-Off meeting helps create a national
e-trade action plan based on intense discussions between all the
relevant stakeholders, including SMEs, trade promotion agencies,
ICT service providers, training institutions and government
ministries. Sponsors of the meeting include Cisco Academy, the
United States Department of Commerce, Alfred University (New York,
USA) and a wide range of locally-based higher education
institutions.
For the first time, ITC will launch the Kick-Off in parallel
with an academic conference on e-business, the International
Business Interface Conference. The aim of running sessions together
is to improve the academic community's response to aspiring
e-traders, resulting in research and skills development programmes
that are grounded in the challenges facing small exporters.
For more information on the services under the E-Trade
Bridge Programme, contact etradebridge@intracen.org
or visit ITC's web site (http://www.intracen.org). To find out more
about the other agencies involved in the Ecuador Kick-Off meeting,
visit:
http://www.esquel.org.ec/main.htm
and
http://www.ibii.org/conferences/equador1/