Today we are to explore Internet and e-commerce infrastructure of the smallest sovereign state in the South America inhabited by slightly over 481,000 people, Suriname. The country is located to the north of the mainland between French Guiana to the east and Guyana to the west; country’s southern border is shared with Brazil and the northern border is the Atlantic coast. Suriname is the only Dutch-speaking region in the world not a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands or Belgium and the only state outside Europe with Dutch as an official language. Moreover, Suriname represents one of the most multicultural societies in the world, with great ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. The economy of the country is dominated by the bauxite industry, and the other main export products include rice, bananas and shrimp. Besides, tourism also forms huge income for the country’s economy owing to pristine Amazonian rain forests and Suriname Nature Reserve that are abundant unique flora and fauna. 

As for the country’s telecom infrastructure, it may reasonably be compared to the Latin American average. However, it is slightly lower than average for Latin America and the Caribbean, a result that is in line with the country’s GDP per capita, also slightly below the regional average.

The only national telecom provider operating on the market is currently state-owned Telesur. The main services delivered by the incumbent include telephone, internet and wireless GSM, CDMA services. Telesur is currently running a 900/1800 GSM and 450Mhz CDMA EVDO network launched in 2002.

Actually, the other fixed-line provider, the ICMS, entered the market in a move to compete Telesur, but it was in operation for four years from 1998 to 2002. So the duopoly ended in 2002 due to problems related to interconnection conditions. Following WTO recommendations, Suriname has agreed to liberalize the telecom sector and has been developing suitable legislation to this end. However, no move has been made towards privatization, and a new Telecommunication Act, first drafted in 1998, is still awaiting approval.

At the same time, being the exclusive dial-up Internet operator, Telesur has two competitors on the mobile market since the end of 2007, when these two, Digicel and Uniqa, launched their own GSM networks.

The state-owned operator is also operating country’s Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD), .sr. Registrations are available directly at the second level.

As for the Internet and broadband penetration, it’s unfortunately lag far behind. Internet infrastructure in Suriname is much less developed than one would expect based on the country’s socioeconomic indicators. That’s mostly due to excessively expensive and slow broadband services. Anyway, over 33% of Surinamers are currently connected to the Internet, with 163,000 people subscribed. Thus the growth for the decade is significant and has made up almost 1300%.

Turning to e-commerce sector, it’s important to note, that despite this type of business activity is still underdeveloped, the country has a huge potential, which is being developed at present.

Thus, Suriname is a current member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) comprised of 15 small jurisdictions, one of the developing regional blocs that have moved towards creating a knowledge-based economy and comprehensive diversification of their services sectors.

Well, and now small and medium size businesses, from the Suriname particularly and the region as the whole, are using the Internet to advertise and sell their products to the rest of the world.

Besides, Government Ministries of Suriname, as well as of other member countries, advertise and promote variety of their services, and investment opportunities while the private sectors offer a wide array of offshore and other services to the rest of the world. These are all e-commerce-related activities that are expected to expand and develop as Member Governments move to facilitate an e-commerce environment.

Unfortunately, in Suriname e-commerce activities seem to be of little priority to the government and as such have not received much attention. This is something to wonder about, since Singh highlighted in 2001 that the country is bi-lingual (Dutch and English) and can offer eservices to the Dutch-Netherlands, Europe, and the English speaking America’s.

Importantly, Caribbean territories, including Suriname, stand to lose tax and tariff revenues from digitized goods trading simply because these goods do not have to pass through the usual convenient taxing points.

Among other things, one of the limitations to output expansion is market size and rate of productivity growth among other things. Consequently, e-commerce helps to break these barriers by increasing market access and ultimately market size.

Well, Suriname has still to accomplish substantial work in order to provide the necessary infrastructure, trust and reliability, regulatory framework, and other complementary services such as credit cards to facilitate different types of online activities.