Commonwealth portal: Will the poor get poorer?

The portal is run by the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC), and the UK's own ecommerce minister, Patricia Hewitt, says it will create a level playing field for all SMEs.

Over 150 small companies have already signed up, but eyebrows have been raised at the backing of some of the world's biggest multinationals.

Sure, Barclays, Ford and Western Mining Australia will bring developing countries into the global marketplace by buying up their produce. And yes, as Hewitt says, that could be the boost these governments need to encourage new companies to supply multinationals.

But is this not new media capitalism based on the old imperial model?

The multinationals will be saving a fortune by getting their supplies on the cheap. And developing countries will be tempted to sell raw materials and resources for hard currency.

Nothing wrong with that, except that the investment decisions of these governments can rate war higher than education, health and economic development. And with an economy based on producing - and exporting - raw materials like coffee and bananas, when are they to start developing value-added goods and services of their own?

Only by building complex, multi-stranded economies will poor countries lose their reliance on the vagaries of world markets, and generate some sustainable wealth. The CBC marketplace does not prohibit this, but it may not do a huge amount to promote it.

Online portals on which rich and poor trade are speeding up a dangerous trend, rather than solving the problem.