Baghdad- Iraq is witnessing an unprecedented growth in online sales activities and social media platforms, to include various types of goods and services, including sensitive products that affect human health, such as medicines, cosmetics and medical devices.
This mutation – which coincides with a clear absence of effective control and the absence of consumer protection tools from fraud – raises fundamental questions about the state’s readiness to control this accelerated sector and adapt it within the official legal framework.
A first organizational step
On January 28 this year, the Iraqi Council of Ministers approved the project of the country’s e -commerce regulating system, in an attempt to develop this sector and simplify its procedures by controlling sales and purchases online at the level of Iraq.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Trade, Mohamed Hanoun, told Al -Jazeera Net that this new system represents a long -awaited decisive step, as it was placed by the Ministry in coordination with the Council of Ministers and the State Shura with the aim of subjecting e -commerce to clear rules and managing them within an official and organized structure.
Hanoun stresses that “the volume of e -commerce in Iraq cannot be limited to accurately, given that it is practiced outside the official frameworks,” noting that the new system will allow the establishment of specialized units within the ministry to follow up and monitor this growing activity effectively.
The State Shura Council is characterized by the moral personality and is linked to the Ministry of Justice, which is the authority concerned with the development of legal and legal formulas for the controls and laws that the executive authority legislates, and is being voted later within the Council of Ministers.
New obligations for electronic traders
According to Hanoun, workers in the e -commerce sector will have to obtain official leave through an electronic platform allocated by the Ministry for this purpose.
The new system also obliges traders to provide accurate and transparent information about their products and services, in addition to protecting customer data and immediate reporting of any security breach.
Hanoun adds, “The system gives the Ministry of Commerce control powers and the application of penalties to violators, and it also assigns the General Authority for Taxes and the General Customs Authority to set special mechanisms for applying taxes and customs duties on electronic activities,” Hanoun added.
And it confirms that the system is “the basic stone in the integration of e -commerce into the official economy, in a way that benefits consumers, merchants and public budgets of the state.”
The growth accelerated after the pandemic
There is no doubt that the Korona pandemic played a major role in accelerating the adoption of Iraqis e -commerce, as these practices have expanded significantly in various governorates, to become an influential component in the internal and external trade movement, and contribute to creating new job opportunities for tens of thousands of young people, especially in the fields of shipping, transportation, storage, opening offices and stores for digital sale.
The absence of the organization deepens the challenges
In turn, Abdullah Ghassan, an expert on e -commerce, believes that Iraq lacks modern and comprehensive laws that control this sector, stressing in his talk to Al -Jazeera Net the need to distinguish between purely electronic stores and those affiliated with commercial institutions based on the ground.
Ghassan notes that “the official censorship is on traditional stores, while the stores that are active only on the Internet lack, which leads to the intervention of the concerned authorities late, often after the damage or complaints of citizens have been received.”
He also warned of the negative economic impact of this defect, stressing that “exempting these stores from taxes and rents puts traditional stores in a weak competitive position, and may lead to the loss of more job opportunities.”
Ghassan added that the current laws for consumer protection are old and do not respond to digital developments, noting that most of the interventions to fight fraud are based on insufficient security measures, and they are often bureaucratic and limited impact.
Digital purchase risk
In light of this reality, Ghassan considers that the online purchases – especially for sensitive products such as medicines and cosmetics – are “a daily risk to the consumer”, due to the lack of a clear legal mechanism to protect it, as the treatments depend on submitting complaints and waiting for the movement of security or health authorities.
He pointed out that some of the owners of electronic stores resort to misleading marketing methods to build unrealistic confidence in the consumer, taking advantage of the weakness of public confidence in the safety of the products offered via the Internet.
Ghassan presented a series of recommendations, most notably:
- Issuing and activating e -commerce legislation through specialized directorates that include experts in the digital field.
- E -stores are registered with symbolic fees to ensure their integration in the official framework.
- Imposing mandatory examination stickers on imported products offered for electronic sale issued by specialized entities such as the Ministry of Health.
- Launching awareness campaigns to urge citizens to verify examination stickers before purchasing sensitive products.
Pharmacists warn
For his part, the official spokesman for the Iraqi Pharmacists Syndicate, Mohamed Sheikhan, warned of the wide spread of the use of unlicensed drug products online, relying on misleading ads, often in which celebrities and artists participate.
Sheikhan told Al -Jazeera Net that “the official license from the Ministry of Health is the only guarantee of the sobriety and safety of any pharmaceutical product,” calling on celebrities to refrain from promoting such products to protect the public’s health and to avoid legal accountability.
He stressed the need for purchases to be limited to licensed pharmacies and under the supervision of a specialized pharmacist, warning of the fake pages that imitate the character of electronic pharmacies, which may suffer citizens with severe health damage as a result of poor and unprecedented products.
And the path of organizing e -commerce in Iraq remains long and complex. The success of this system not only depends on issuing laws, but rather to activate and follow up their implementation, raise awareness of the citizen, and build mutual trust between the seller and the consumer within a strong legal and monitoring framework that accompanies the era of the digital economy and puts the interest of society in the forefront.
