China’s Alibaba Group signs first MoU to enter Pakistani market

[Kabira]

Pakistan on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Alibaba Group Holdings Limited to promote country's worldwide exports by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through e-commerce.

The agreement between Alibaba and Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) was signed by Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir and Michael Evans, President of Alibaba Group, and Douglas Feagin, Senior Vice President of Global Business of Ant Financial, on behalf of Alibaba, during the visit of Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to the headquarters of the company.

Alibaba Group's Executive Chairman, Jack Ma and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif witnessed the signing ceremony.

Explore: PM Sharif, Alibaba president discuss e-commerce giant's prospects in Pakistan

Under the terms of the MoU, Alibaba, Ant Financial, and TDAP agreed to foster growth of worldwide exports of products by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan through e-commerce.

Online and offline training programs for the SMEs would also be conducted by Alibaba in a bid to assist SMEs with on-boarding on to Alibaba's platforms and optimizing exports through e-commerce.

TDAP will help identify suitable SMEs to participate in the training programs while Alibaba will be responsible for providing industry analysis to TDAP to assist them in their selection process.

In addition, Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP have agreed to promote the growth of financial services in Pakistan in areas such as mobile and online payment services.

The parties have also agreed to adopt cloud computing services to support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of SMEs in Pakistan.



https://www.dawn.com/news/1333495/c...a-group-set-to-enter-pakistan-signs-first-mou

 

[NakedLunch]

A lot of good news these days, mashallah. Pakistan is finally moving in the right direction.

 

[Yaseen1]

please introduce cash payment on delivery in local currency option for buying goods from Alibaba in Pakistan

 

[RIP Pak LAW]

They gonna buy daraz.pk soon.

 

[CAD]

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made his first ever visit to Alibaba’s Hangzhou headquarters Tuesday to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chinese e-commerce giant.

Alibaba, affiliate Ant Financial and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan agreed to “foster growth” of exports from the South Asian country’s small and medium-sized enterprises, while training Pakistan’s small businesses to better use Alibaba’s platforms and e-commerce in general. The parties will also work together to grow online payments and cloud-computing services in Pakistan.

“Pakistan has seen significant progress in the past years, and we look forward to working together with TDAP to further enhance the potential of their SMEs through the signing of this MOU,” said Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma in a statement. Ma was on hand for the signing ceremony.

MOUs are typically the first phase of collaboration between Alibaba and its public and private partners to explore ways of doing business together. Tuesday’s announcement follows similar initiatives by Alibaba to support the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries by increasing access to e-commerce. As these SMEs grow, the economies of those developing countries do as well.

One trend helping to drive that growth is the ubiquity of smartphones. This has given rise to greater levels of mobile commerce, both in consumption and in entrepreneurship. In Pakistan, mobile phones accounted for 70 percent of all web traffic in the year ending January 31. However, with just 18 percent of the population currently online—35.1 million out of a total 194.8 million—there is still room for the sector to expand.

“With the support of the Alibaba Group we hope to elevate our local businesses to new heights and bring them into the realm of the e-commerce platform,” Prime Minister Sharif said in the statement.

Sharif’s visit comes less than a week after Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was in Hangzhou to witness a separate MOU signing with Alibaba. Over the past two months, the company and its affiliates have signed several agreements with Malaysia’s government and Malaysian enterprises to realize Ma’s vision of an Electronic World Trade Platform. The eWTP would create an online network of free-trade zones that would allow SMEs to participate in the global economy.

Source: alizila

 

[Devil Soul]

China’s Alibaba Group signs first MoU to enter Pakistani market

HANGZHOU: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group signed an MoU with Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) to support development of SMEs and financial services.

The development took place after a series of meetings and visits of Alibaba Group to Pakistan. The prime minister had met Executive Chairman of the company Jack Ma during World Economic Forum (WEF) and later a high-level delegation of the company visited Pakistan to explore the opportunities.

Addressing here at the signing ceremony of MoU regarding setting up an e-platform, the Prime Minister said the initiative would help create jobs and generate livelihood in the country.

The Prime Minister termed e-commerce a catalyst for bringing improvement in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector, which he said could help promote the disadvantaged segments of the society.

He said digital transactions were a solution for small entrepreneurs to expand their businesses and reach global markets.

He expressed pleasure on meeting the founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Jack Ma following their last meeting at Davos this January and said he was impressed by the contribution of the e-commerce giant for the economic uplift of Chinese people.

The Prime Minister said Alibaba Group’s approach of helping out small business enterprisers had a humanistic dimension which was also the pivot of Pakistan government’s policies since 2013.
Nawaz Sharif appreciated Jack Ma for his intention to open an e-platform of Alibaba in Paksitan and said he had earlier directed his office to work out the formalities that resulted in signing of MoU within four months.

He expressed hope that Alibaba Group would launch the project in Pakistan at the earliest.

Jack Ma, well-known for his successes in online trade and mobile payments said e-commerce had enormous potential to unlock growth in emerging markets.

He said the future of e-commerce looked promising for small businesses and mentioned that nowadays, more and more such entities were incorporating e-commerce platforms as part of their business systems.

He said his company was closely monitoring the progress of Pakistan’s e-commerce sector and wanted to support small scale industries.

He apprised the Prime Minister that Alibaba Group was facilitating 60 million companies across the globe and said that around 300,000 consumers from Pakistan had signed with Alibaba for transactions and company’s services.

Jack Ma lauded that small craft factories flourishing in Pakistan and mentioned the country’s world famous products particularly footballs and Himalayan pink salt.

He emphasized that paying special attention to the youth in Pakistan, being two-third of country’s population, could make them more productive for national economy.

The Alibaba founder said close collaboration between Pakistan and China in commerce could turn the “irons brothers into golden brothers”.

Minister for Commece Khurram Dastagir, Pakistan’s ambassador to China Masood Khalid and China’s ambassador Sun Weidong were present.

 

[Fledgingwings]

Sounds like Chinese are ready to hit the market in pakistan.

 

[Kambojaric]

Great news!

 

[Saif-ud-Din Qutuz]

Glad to see our bald and empty headed PM sitting next to the group's representative. He'll pocket huge kick-back on the deal. Good going bitch, good going.

 

[Kompromat]

This is actually great news.

 

[khail007]

Few years ago, personally as a retail buyer, I had a mixed experience thru Alibaba (lost money - items provided were not the same which were ordered. Some orders provided exactly what I ordered) , you have to learn the tricks and a thorough investigation of vendor.
If you master the art Alibaba is a good platform for B2B.
Further, it reflects that international investors are gaining confidence on Pakistan's market/economy.

 

[maximuswarrior]

Excellent news.

 

[Basel]

They gonna buy daraz.pk soon.

Why?? Their own name is also popular here who shop online knows about alibaba.

Glad to see our bald and empty headed PM sitting next to the group's representative. He'll pocket huge kick-back on the deal. Good going bitch, good going.

If I m not wrong NS is sitting with Jack Maa the founder of Alibaba.

 

[RIP Pak LAW]

Why?? Their own name is also popular here who shop online knows about alibaba.

Alibaba is for b2b sales where items have to be ordered in bulk only. Only vendors do that. For general public, they have Ali Express. Daraz.pk already have the required infrastructure with all the local (Pakistani) vendors onboard hence it is much easier and feasible for a Chinese company to acquire them as compared to set up on their own. Also, Darazpk belongs to a German firm, Rocket International whose business model is to create new companies, invest in them heavily and sold them later on to the biggest buyers.

 

[Saif-ud-Din Qutuz]

If I m not wrong NS is sitting with Jack Maa the founder of Alibaba.

That's correct, he is the representative of this gigantic group. He is the big daddy there. Time of huge kick-back, yay! Mainu note vikha, mera mood banay. Awesome Ganjaayaa!