Ict, e-business and Small and Medium Enterprises

resolution mechanisms. Strengthen cross-border co-operation between stakeholders and the development 

of rules with cross-border application. 

•

 

Develop and distribute digital content, including by expanding the commercial use of information 

about the public sector, education and health care. E-government services to enterprises should be used 

as a tool to improve efficiency of government interactions and operations with SMEs. 

•

 

Reduce ICT skill impediments to the growth of SMEs. Strengthen government and private roles to improve 

basic ICT skills and developing frameworks to encourage higher level ICT and e-business skill formation 

(including marketing, organisational, security, trust and management skills in addition to ICT skills) in 

conjunction with education institutions, business and individuals. 

 

Competition 

Governments and competition authorities need to be aware of the impacts of e-business networks 

on small firms. Business to business networks are restructuring value-chains with potentially very large 

lock-in effects and impacts on small firms. The centralising effects of e-business networks potentially drain 

resources from rural, remote and lagging regions and sectors, and could also reinforce clustering around 

the richest industrial and urban areas, and increase the economic and social disparities between urban and 

rural populations. In developing countries, governments could pay particular attentions to multi-user 

solutions to provide access to network infrastructure, which could also be used as a tool by governments to 

reach infrastructure access objectives.  

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