By: Mawaiz Khan Akash
E-Commerce is very important issue now days because it is the Era of Information Technology. In these days IT can play an important role in the development of economies of the world. The Government of Pakistan took initiative of Information Technology and in E-Commerce in early 2000.

Use of Internet is rapidly going to change the whole world. According to government's survey for 2006/07 there are 2.4 million subscribes and 10.7 million Internet users in Pakistan. Lot of telecom companies are working to provide the best facilities to their users. Some Companies are spreading Fiber Optics network in whole over Pakistan. Fiber Optics Network facilities available in more than 500 cities.E-Commerece related to the delivery of information, product or payment via telephone lines, network or any other means.E- Commerce directly relates to online business, services and many more.

Pakistan has the capability to move into the Era of electronic trade. Due to the use of Internet more and more countries are involved in E-Business. Doing business via internet is easy task and billion of people can be connected at same time.

The over-all volume of e-commerce is more than $4 billion annually. Doing Business is effective due to low cost and in near future it is expected that around about 30% business will be through Internet.

The corporate and the business world, appropriately supported by the IT industry.

As we start warming up to global e-commerce in Pakistan, we must understand that almost 78 per cent of the e-commerce activity takes place in the USA, obviously driven by the use of internet in that country. As the January 2000, over 110 million people have internet access there compared to 279 million the world over.

Pakistan can make good use of this opportunity with proper planning and execution. To begin with, let us focus on the domestic front before going all out for the global market.

The issue of E-business in Pakistan is becoming very popular among the businessmen. The Government of Pakistan should take better initiative to improve the required infrastructure to promoting the E-Business in Pakistan.

Those Companies who wants to start business via internet then they should prepare their own web sites which containing all the information about your Organization, also providing the extra facilities to their customers such as providing free detailed information about the product and services.

However, Pakistan is still far behind in chasing the west in this regard. Entrepreneurs in Pakistan are of the opinion that e- commerce means being able to make and receive payments through internet and any other activity through internet is not considered as e-commerce. This low level of understanding has led many Pakistani firms to give low priority to e-commerce due to unavailability of proper framework for the internet in the country.

In Pakistan, the Concept of E-Commerce is not very common. The Government of Pakistan should take initiative to provide the basic information about the E-Commerce. The government provides the basic infrastructure in telecom sector. Telecom sector is the basic way to doing business via Internet.

Hence it can be concluded that one should take a balanced view when considering about e-commerce any making any decisions which involved spending time or money in terms of long term investment in the arena of international trade, import/export or global sourcing using e-commerce. The era of e-commerce may not be a total bed of roses with all advantages and no drawbacks; nevertheless it is not something which can be thrown away at a moments notice. Rather the usage of e-commerce with certain keep on rising and the phenomenon of international trade would continue to benefit the trade of goods and services in form of import/export and the search of optimum products and services via global sourcing.