The Federal Government has been advised to invest on infrastructures to aid e-commerce operation in Nigeria, so as to boost its economic growth.

Chief Executive Officer of Rothschild Nigeria, Mr. Stephen Nwatu made the call during the inauguration ceremony of Rothschild, one of Nigeria’s online shopping malls in Festac town, Lagos.

He added that e-commerce has potential of contributing immensely to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually.

”The organisation’s priority is to ensure a first-class customer online experience as the growth potential for e-commerce in Nigeria is enormous”, he said, adding that ”Rothschild is working to create an online shopping experience to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping.

According to him, it has been discovered that there is a correlation between teledensity, internet penetration and online shopping. He cited that a report by Ericson Ltd states that 84% of phones now in Africa have internet access, while phones and desktops are being replaced with smart devices with higher internet capabilities.

In his words:  “When we look at this terrain, we felt there are still gaps to fill, needs that are waiting to be attended to and we decided to join the bandwagon and set the pace. When the telecommunication sector was deregulated in 2001 with the attendant introduction of the GSM, our teledensity leapfrogged from a paltry volume of below 300,000 lines in 2001 to 20 million lines in 2005, 90 million in 2010 and about 140 million in 2015 respectively.

The internet penetration on the other hand moved from 78,140 users in 2000 to about 68 million users in 2014 thereby allowing us to know the true meaning of what makes the world a global village”.