Kanissorn Navanugraka, the director general of the department, said the idea is to develop e-commerce in the country. It is the first time the department has turned to the Internet in order to allow Thai businesses, especially small and medium business as well as new businesses, both off-line and online firms, to access the information easily and conveniently.

 The department aims to increase the number of e-commerce businesses from around 6,000 at present to 12,000 in the next three years, higher than the natural  growth rate of  20 per cent per year.

 Last year, of a total 827,051 companies, only 30,000 to 40,000 had their own websites and only 6,000 could be identified as e-commerce business. Only 0.8 per cent of all businesses had adopted e-commerce as a marketing tool to enhance their competitiveness.

 The electronic courses cover four subjects: basic knowledge of e-commerce, e-commerce marketing strategies, e-commerce capability enhancement, and English business writing.

 In the initial phase, the online training aims to develop more than 1,000 e-commerce businesses  through a pilot period of one and a half months during July and August.

 The department will analyse the responses to the pilot course to make improvements before launching further courses.

"The obstacle to the development of e-commerce in the country is that the area is quite new for local businesses who are not familiar with the Internet and don't know how the Internet can become a crucial marketing tool," said Kanissorn.

Doing business electronically can help companies save costs, but   promoting e-commerce required efforts in other areas, especially the development of well-designed  logistics and payment systems, he said.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation