RP lures Amazon.com

Government is trying to attract Amazon.com to the Philippines to set up its regional warehouse facility in Asia as well as its backroom office to handle its operations in the region.

Following a meeting between trade representatives and officials of the world's first and biggest on-line shopping company. Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II told reporters that Amazon's volume of trade in the region has reached the point where it would be necessary to set up a separate depot and warehousing facilities in Asia.

Roxas said the Philippine delegation that met with Amazon officials in Seattle last week proposed the possibility of locating these facilities here together with the backroom office that would handle the transactions in the region.

"About 75 percent of Amazon's business is still which continental US," Roxas said. "But volumes in the region have grown enough such that they are seriously thinking of putting up off-shore warehousing and logistical support facilities."

"After all, shipping accounts for a big portion of the cost if you are buying on-line from Amazon. This would reduce the effective cost of shopping from Amazon if shipments could be made from somewhere closer to their Asian clients," Roxas explained.

Amazon is the world's first successful on-line shipping company, starting its business mainly for books and other reading materials. In 1999, the company reported a 169-percent increase in sales from $610 million to $1.64 billion to 17 million customers.

The company has since diversified from on-line retailing of books to the distribution of a wide array of products such as toys, consumer electronics, home improvement products, software, video games and other consumer products.

Amazon said sales outside the US now account for 22 percent of its business, totalling $358 million. In the UK and Germany, it has added music and auctions to its on-line operations and Amazon.com is now the most popular domain in Europe.