July 27, 2004 - Washington, DC To discuss the benefits on online government services for businesses, government officials, and business leaders in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico connected with each other, and with World Bank staff in Washington in a GDLN videoconference dialogue on July 27, 2004. The event forms part of a 12-month initiative, sponsored by the World Bank's Knowledge Management team for Latin America and the Caribbean, to help public and private sector organizations accelerate the rate with which micro and small enterprises are using web-based resources to conduct business.

Panelists from Chile and Mexico presented the results to date of implementing online services for businesses in their countries. Benefits include increased access to and availability of services, higher transparency of transactions, and significant reductions in processing time and costs. Brazilian and Ecuadorian government officials discussed their countries' efforts to make a variety of public sector services available on the Internet.

Participants also urged the World Bank to help countries adopt online business registration services by benchmarking good practices and standards in online business registration; disseminating information on the costs and benefits of online services; promoting standards and technologies that would facilitate the adoption of such services between different government agencies; and financing programs to generate online business registration. Brazilian government officials also invited the World Bank to lead a regional dialogue where Latin American countries could deepen the discussion. To discuss these requests, the Bank's Knowledge Management Team for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Bank's e-development team, are organizing a follow-up conference tentatively scheduled for November, 2004.

For more information, please contact James Hanna at jhanna@worldbank.org, or Ana Carrasco at acarrasco@worldbank.org, or visit www.worldbank.org/ebusinesslac.

Learn more about GDLN in Latin America and the Caribbean at http://lac.gdln.org.