Singapore, First Asian Country To Ratify UN Convention

16 Jul 2010

Singapore has become the first country in Asia to ratify UN Convention on the use of Electronic communications in international contracts on 7 July, 2010.

The UN Convention on the use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts seeks to facilitate global electronic commerce trade by harmonizing laws amongst countries and providing a set of comprehensive rules to guide the use of electronic communications in the negotiation and formation of international contracts.  

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) completed a review of the ETA recently, which included several rounds of public consultations and discussions on the UN Convention in order to align both legal frameworks.

Mr.Vanu Gopala Menon, Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the UN, at the ratification ceremony in New York said,” I am pleased that Singapore is now among the first in the world to ratify the Convention. The Convention sets a new global standard for national electronic commerce legislation and will remove barriers to cross-border electronic commerce arising from disharmony in national electronic commerce legislation. We hope to see more states adopting the Convention so as to achieve harmonization of electronic commerce legislation amongst countries.”