Annex 2: Myanmar E-commerce Benchmark Benchmarks have been prepared to determine potential e-commerce penetration amongst consumers that should be achieved through the adoption of measures in this strategy. It considers Myanmar’s adoption of e-commerce in relation to the adoption in comparable states:  Selected Asian states for which e-commerce penetration data was available: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Pakistan and Vietnam;  Lower Middle-Income countries more generally for which e-commerce penetration data was available8. Countries that might be considered for closer evaluation have been identified from these two sets. This closer evaluation examined the factors used in calculating the UNCTAD E-commerce Index to determine gaps in input factors between Myanmar and those comparable countries that have a higher level of consumer e-commerce. The intention of this strategy is to fill those gaps, enabling a higher level of consumer e-commerce penetration with consequential growth in e-commerce enabled businesses and their employment. Benchmark against selected Asian states The benchmark against selected Asian states is a simple of assessment of Myanmar’s relative position in consumer e-commerce penetration9 in comparison with GDP per capita at current prices and in terms of 2017 PPP prices. This comparison is shown in Figure 3-1 and Figure 3-2 below. The hypothesis behind this benchmark, and also that against lower middle-income countries is that GDP per capita is an indicator of e-commerce take up by consumers. The justification is that many input factors, including those used by UNCTAD to construct its e-commerce index are positively correlated with GDP per capita; the conditions for e-commerce improve as GDP per capita rises. Both GDP based on current prices were used and GDP based on constant prices were used to examine whether the general level of prices in a country made a difference to the outcome, whether those countries with higher prices (and hence a lower PPP GDP) would be more or less likely to adopt consumer e-commerce. The benchmark was inconsequential on this particular point. These graphs show the country by country comparison and the implied relationship between GDP and e-commerce penetration. As Vietnam is an outlier with higher e-commerce penetration that might be indicated by its GDP per capita in this sample of countries, the relationships between GDP per capita for all countries and for all countries except Vietnam were determined. It should be noted that while the relationship between GDP per capita and e-commerce penetration was strong for those countries except Vietnam, when all selected countries were used, the relationship was substantially weaker. This suggests that Vietnam is pursuing policies that other countries in the sample are not. The strong relationship between other countries may of course be serendipitous given the small size of the sample, something that will be considered further in the discussion of the benchmark against lower middle-income countries. This comparison shows that on either a PPP at constant price basis or a current price basis, Myanmar was already, in 2017, showing slightly higher than might be expected in this set of countries, with perhaps Cambodia and Vietnam being the only countries performing better. Cambodia’s position, however, is so close to Myanmar’s that it did not appear to be a suitable candidate for further examination. Vietnam, however, with its substantially higher e-commerce penetration was considered to be such a candidate. 88 9 Those covered by FINDEX 2017 Those that used the internet to buy something online in the past year(% age 15+) 64