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To: Jan Crawley who wrote (56225)	5/11/1999 8:16:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164685

Singapore sees 50 pct firms in e-commerce by 2003 SINGAPORE, May 11 (Reuters) - Singapore expects 50 percent of its companies to adopt electronic commerce by 2003, National Computer Board (NCB) chief executive Michael Yap said on Tuesday. Only four percent of the 62,000 active companies in the city state were e-commerce ready presently, Yap told reporters after the launch of a new company, Commerce Exchange Pte Ltd. "Our target is to have 20 percent adopting e-commerce in the next two years, and hopefully 2003 our open target is 50 percent," he said. The S$5 million Commerce Exchange will provide an online, community-based trading marketplace which connects companies, their suppliers and financial institutions through an Internet-based e-commerce procurement network. Major equity partners of the company are TDF Management Pte Ltd, Visa International and NCB Holdings, an investment arm of the NCB. Commerce Exchange targets to handle S$5 billion in e-commerce transactions in three years, said its general manager Danny Lo. The Singapore-based firm would expand its business into regional markets within the next 12 months, he said. Commerce Exchange's major customers included Shell Eastern Petroleum <SHEL.L>, Compaq Computer Asia <CPQ.N>, Microsoft Singapore <MSFT.O> and Canon Marketing Services. More Singapore retailers would join the cyber trade through those big international companies which deal with hundreds of small- and medium-sized firms, Yap said. Compared with the west, e-commerce has not taken off in Asia, but "in five year's time if companies don't go on e-commerce, I think they are going to be in trouble," Yap said. Singapore passed an electronic-commerce law in 1998 as part of its efforts to establish the island-state as an international hub for growing cyber trade.