Bradford is being put at the forefront of electronic commerce thanks to a project which will develop Internet trading in at least 50 firms.

The project, which is ready to be launched, will also create about 20 jobs and advise a further 50 companies. But people behind the scheme, which ends next September, expect to beat both targets.

They expect many more firms will have been helped to trade on the Internet and grown so much they will need to employ more staff.

The £600,000 project has won 50 per cent funding from the European Regional Development Fund and is being spearheaded by Bradford Chamber of Commerce.

Other partners are Bradford Council, Business Link Bradford & District and Bradford firm Legend Internet.

The project is initially being set up by the Chamber's enterprise and marketing manager Iain Macdonald and Scott Sellers has been employed as project manager.

Mr Macdonald said: "E-commerce is the way things are going in business and we want Bradford to be at the forefront of it so we have set up this project to make sure that happens. We will be looking to help 50 firms involved in manufacturing and business-to-business companies."

The package, which is subsidised by the European funding, starts by providing the firms involved with a website and goes on to use the Chamber of Commerce ChamberSign service which provides secure trading for companies.

ChamberSign, which is a national service, makes sure that e-mails received by businesses have an electronic signature on them which can be validated by the company receiving them.

Firms taking part will also receive a software package from Actinic which allows them to place orders, be acknowledged and invoiced and trade electronically.

Companies taking part in the scheme and firms around the world will also be able to tap into a website which has been devised by the scheme's partners and has links with a current Buy Bradford website.

This will allow companies in the Bradford area to learn about the benefits of the e-commerce project and buy in to its services.

For further information contact Scott or Iain on (01274) 772777 or wwwscotts@cms.yorks.com.

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