(30 December 2020) – The world has been facing huge challenges with COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020. This inevitable situation affects us to change the way we communicate and doing businesses. Accordingly, World Trustmark and trade Alliance (WTA) held the 2020 Annual Meeting through online channel with attending member entities, honorary members and distinguished guests.
Theme of 2020 Annual Meeting was “Trust Essential-Everything About Trust” reflecting the truth that trust remains essential to people, businesses and every economy. Business replies on trust to obtain transactions and consumer confidence. People need trust on the transactional environment to get life essentials. Technology is able to be trustworthy by accommodating into accountability, transparency and self-regulations. Everything is based on trust to sustain and to grow the economy under these uncertainty era and speedy technology.
The meeting started with welcome speeches from WTA Rotating Chairperson Dr. JJ Pan of Acxiom US and WTA Vice Chairperson Mr. Mandai Eiichiro of ODR Room Japan. WTA Honorary Vice Chairperson, Professor Zhang Ping of Beijing University addressed the importance of accountable data flow and certifications for cross border businesses. Key note speech of E-commerce Business Alliance of Asia Pacific Economic Corporation, Professor Wang Jiang was on the critical value of inclusive supply chain to digital trade, US privacy professional, senior SVP of TrustArc Hilary M. Wandall talked about the status and challenges of existing cross-border data flow and certification systems in the world. Senior manager of Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association Mitch Chihara, addressed the critical data circle and related achievements of different industries in Japan, Malaysia expert, SVP of cyber security Sazali Sukardi mentioned on the developments and issues of IOT security, and the last one of morning session was senior Lead Auditor from Taipei speaking about future WTA cross-border trustmarks.
The afternoon tracks were focused on the status update of WTA members and WTA per se. The research manager of Zhongxin E-commerce Transactional Assurance and Promotional Center from Shenzhen China, Pan Yao updated national and international standardizations related to develop trustworthy E-Commerce. Chair of Hongkong Federal E-commerce, Joseph Yuan introduced developments of reliable International Data Center. Managing Director of E-commerce Foundation, Jorij Abraham reported the status of global scams and future plan. Senior analyst of Cybersecurity Malaysia, Hasnida Zainuddin, foreign affair manager of Tradesafe from Japan, Mandai Eiichiro and Chief Privacy Officer of CommerceNet Singapore, Mr. Ramesh E.V. Balakrishnan spoke the professional developments of their trustmarks in respective countries.
Before closing remark come, attendees including Jovel Cipriano of Skipperlabs from Philippine, Dr. Toh Sea Kiat of CommerceNet from Singapore etc. discussed the challenge and future plan of WTA based on the survey responses by members and partners during this Sep. This extensive discussions and suggestions of upcoming member fees and cross border trustmark had been raised, so they will be followed up in the next task force meeting. Also, the host country of 2021 annual meeting and the following chairmanship would be nominated during next 2 months.