Management Consultant, Fredrick Ofosu Darko has emphasized the need to strengthen E-commerce channels in the country. According to him, public-private collaboration should be the way forward in addressing the challenges of building a cashless economy such as the lack of robust payment systems. Mr Ofosu Darko explains to JOY BUSINESS, this has become crucial because of the paradigm shift from local to global competition in the business and economic world. “If I want to buy something, I’ll look on the local market first and then go onto the internet. If I can find it cheaper on the internet and I have a means such as the Visa Cards that allow people buy from outside. Even if it’s a car there would cars sitting at the car ranch but I’ll still import a car. Those car sellers have global competitors but they do not know and this is affecting their business” he said. “Also there are Ghanaians traditional goods and services that are so preferred by the Diaspora but we are unable to sell them abroad via online. Example is the Ghanaians fabrics and artifacts sold on the Osu Oxford street and other places. Imagine the foreigners who usually patronize these items find them online and import and receive them why cant that create a market for us” he addded. He adds that the more attention needs to be paid to the issue due to its implications for macro economic variables such as the exchange rate. “We have a traditional import and export regime which the experts would use to sort of determine our exchange rate. That is the theory that if we export more and import little our exchange rate would appreciate and the vice-versa” he stated. “But what do we see today? There is an aspect of import that we have not taken into consideration and that is the online where people are purchasing and importing all sorts of items online but we are unable to export even a single product online. So all the extra import online added to the traditional imports will outweigh only the traditional exports and this only worsens our foreign exchange situation among other macro economic factors” he explained.