Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

In almost all countries with information available the majority of businesses’ e-commerce sales by value are made to other businesses (as shown in Figure 8). Even so business-to-consumer (B2C) sales are a central feature of the e-commerce landscape and of great interest to businesses and policymakers.

The creative economy encompasses creating producing and distributing goods and services that use creativity and intellectual capital as primary inputs. It includes diverse activities such as advertising architecture arts design music and movie production publishing and video games (for more on the definition and measurement of the creative economy see Annex I). The creative economy is rapidly growing offering opportunities for economic development and diversification. It generates cultural and societal values and supports economic objectives like economic growth and job creation. This sector is vital for some developing countries though a recent UNCTAD survey highlights significant differences across countries. Digital creative content increasingly replaces physical goods like books films music and video games. Digitalization also supports emerging business models such as streaming and digital platforms and fosters cross-industry collaborations (e.g. between video game companies musicians publishers and film studios) and gamification across sectors. Additionally demographic shifts in developing economies with younger generations consuming more digital content drive growth in creative industries.