business is increasing by 10 percent every month in Saudi Arabia, Abbas Safadieh, General Manager of Souq.com, told a press conference here, Saturday. Out of the $4 billion e-commerce activity that took place in 2009, 20 percent or roughly $800 million was in retail shopping with women, physically handicapped, people living in remote cities, aged and pregnant, Safadieh said “Lack of proper mailing addresses and other established forms of contact details are still the major impediments to the growth of e-business market in Saudi Arabia that has reached to about $4 billion in 2009,” he said. Despite the inadequately developed postal system, the e-business has been growing comparatively faster in Saudi Arabia, he said. Saudi Arabia's growth in e-business, he said, could be compared with Egypt and Jordan where the Souq.com has been operating since 2005. The total volume of e-business recorded in Egypt was $2.1 billion and $1.7 billion in Jordan, the two Mideastern countries where the Souq.com established its online business in 2005, he said. Safadieh said Souq.com is a subsidiary of Maktoub.com which was acquired by Yahoo Technology, the second largest Internet search engine in the US. Souq.com has become the largest e-commerce site in the Arab World covering Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Egypt and is soon expanding to include other countries in the region, he said. He said 80 percent of the e-business activity conducted was in areas such as stock exchange, tour and travel sector, payment of utility bills and other services sector although the company deals in 120 products listed on its site. The most saleable items in retail shopping included electronics such as mobile phones and laptops and ready-made garments among others, he said. “About 250,000 items were sold in Saudi Arabia in 2008
