The Future of the AGOA Agreement
The AGOA agreement between the USA and African states has brought a lot of benefits over the years. As we wrote in this Newsletter recently, the African Heads of State…
Read MoreNews From Africa
The South Africa Reserve Bank (SARB) Outlines its Plans for Changes In the past SARB only formally asked the traditional banking sector for comments on its detailed policies and regulations.…
Read MoreUNCTAD Continues to Encourage its Member States to Measure Ecommerce
One area in which there is very limited information available concerns the monetary value of ecommerce transactions. As readers will know, this is one of this EFA’s and EFSA’s major…
Read MoreAmazon is re-verifying the identity and business details of third-party sellers on its U.S. marketplace.
Amazon is asking sellers to re-verify their identity because of a new US federal law. On 27 June, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will start enforcing the INFORM Consumers Act…
Read MoreThe EU’s Digital Services Act
The DSA came into effect last month. It applies specific requirements to ecommerce operators in the EU. The Act defines ecommerce/internet providers into a number of categories. The major platforms…
Read MoreBig Tech News
Apple sent waves across the fintech landscape last month with the launch of its new savings account, which saw deposits reach nearly $1bn over the first 4 days. Savings are…
Read MoreMiscellaneous
Interesting Data Privacy Case – Transfers of Personal Data, the EU versus the US. Meta has been fined a record €1.2bn by the Irish Data Protection Commission for not complying…
Read MoreSustainability, Reducing the Use of Plastics in Packaging and Action on Climate and Trade
Recently Takealot announced that it would be using sustainable packaging. In this decision the South African ecommerce company was following other market leaders, such as Amazon. A lot is being…
Read MoreAfrica’s Digital Trade is Low, but Overall Growth is Good
Trade in digitally delivered services boomed during COVID, with global exports growing by 15% on average in 2020-21. The newly released WTO-OECD Balanced Trade in Services report reveals digitally delivered…
Read MoreThe EU Plans to Do Away with its de minimis Customs Benefit: EFA is Greatly Concerned
EFA has held a meeting with our European colleagues at the Ecommerce Europe to discuss the new EU proposals on customs. The draft circulated by the European Commission proposes that…
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