Hanoi (VNA) – The annual ASEAN Online Sale Dayis being held from August 8 to 10, creating an avenue for retailers acrossvarious sectors to showcase their offerings and reach out to the largerregional market, China’s Xinhua reported.

Despite the uncertainties caused by the COVID-19pandemic, the economy of Southeast Asia is showing resilience by a promisinge-commerce industry.

This is the second time for ASEAN members to hold theshopping event, which was initiated by Vietnam in 2020 to be a yearly event,and aims to facilitate cross-border e-commerce and to support local small andmedium enterprises (SMEs) in the context of COVID-19.

Flashing ads for sales have been seen several days beforethe event on the websites and apps of local and cross-border e-commerceplayers, such as Shopee, Lazada, Zalora and JD.

From groceries, electronics, to educational and hotelservices, a variety of products and services across the region can be reachedwith a click.

The rise of e-commerce has appeared to be the silverlining of the pandemic-stricken economy and is bringing more and more momentumto the economic recovery.

According to a recent report released by Lazada, aleading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, 52 percent of sellers inIndonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore saw ahigh level of growth during the first half of 2021, with 70 percent expectingadditional growth of more than 10 percent in the third quarter of 2021./.