THE ROLE OF E-COMMERCE IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE BETWEEN EGYPT AND THE EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

Despite the remarkable development of the use of e-commerce, however, the use of e-commerce in Egypt is still small compared to many countries in the world, suggesting many problems facing use of electronic commerce it impedes the development of agricultural exports through which it can be made to the European Union in general and to the most important importing States of agricultural products in particular. The research was aimed at identifying the development of the Internet and e-commerce worldwide in general and comparing it with its development in Egypt and what is the role of e-commerce in marketing horticultural products to the European market and what the facilities it has done to give trade the flexibility required to achieve the required increase in Egypt's exports and what export opportunities it has shown to exporters to help them reach many European markets. These statistics point to the increasing use of e-commerce by Arab States in general and to increase them in Egypt in particular, showing that Egypt's total traditional trade value for these two years 41.311 in million dollars and the value of e-commerce from it was estimated at 10.82 million dollars, which means that e-commerce accounted for about 35 percent of the value of traditional trade.   Statistics from internet users in the Arab region indicate that there is a 14% increase in the number of users in the years 2015, 2016, which is a positive sign that e-commerce is continuing in growth among the Arab world population Egypt continues to lead the Arab region with an average of 29 million Internet users, with up to 56 percent of them benefiting from it, buying and shopping online. The research focused on clarifying the role of e-commerce in the development of Egyptian agricultural exports and the completion of export transactions, as it was found that the use of e-commerce accounted for some 68% of the sample of exporters in the study, while there were those who used both e-commerce and traditional trade and accounted for about 27% of the total study sample. There were important questions about e-commerce that had been surveyed through personal interviews and a number of 30 questionnaire form export and import companies representing the sample of the study and selected in the intentional sampling method given because it is a company that works in the export of vegetable and fruit products as a basic activity, with about 88% of the respondents confirming that used electronic commerce to identify or access new markets, while the respondents also explained that the majority of them had other sources Other than e-commerce (Fairs and Exporters ' Union publications) rely on them to market their exports. Some 90% of the exporters in the study indicated that they could not dispense with e-commerce in dealing with importers as they contribute significantly to facilitating procedures, contracting shipping, reducing export costs and reducing risk costs.