Alibaba Group on Monday deepened its commitment to Malaysia, opening an office in Kuala Lumpur to help Malaysian businesses identify global cross-border trade opportunities.
Alibaba described the office as a “one-stop shop” for Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises, providing support and platforms to assist them to drive exports, extensive training programs and cloud-computing services to foster broader technological innovation in the country.
“Alibaba’s focus is on three areas when we partner with Malaysia, as well as other countries – to digitize our local partners and empower small businesses and young people to go global,” said Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma at the office-opening ceremony. “Over the past 30 years, only large corporations have benefited from globalization. Imagine if we could support 60 million small business around the world. This is Alibaba’s vision of an inclusive and sustainable economy.”
The office opening is the latest step Alibaba has taken to create inclusive and innovative global trading technology infrastructure in Malaysia. The country was the launching pad for the Electronic World Trade Platform initiative introduced by Ma.
“I would like to congratulate Alibaba for the opening of its national office in Malaysia. We consider this a shining symbol of China-Malaysia friendship that is based on mutual respect and benefits that augurs well for the cooperation on the part of governments, businesses and people from both countries,” said Malaysia’s Minister of Finance Yang Berhormat Lim Guan Eng. “We look forward to the opportunities this partnership will bring to Malaysian SMEs.”
As part of the eWTP program, Alibaba last November launched its first international eHub in Malaysia, aiming to facilitate exports for Malaysian SMEs and create the infrastructure to support global trade. Services include e-commerce, logistics, cloud computing, mobile payments and training of talent.
Watch: A look at the Electronic World Trade Platform
Other initiatives have followed, including establishment of Alibaba’s first regional e-fulfillment hub near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and an internet data center – Malaysia’s first global public cloud platform.
And the drumbeat is set to continue, with Alibaba also announcing Monday it will hold a “Malaysia Week,” an online promotion to attract Chinese consumers to buy Malaysian. The event, from July 6 to 12, will showcase over 50 Malaysian brands from multiple product categories. They’ll be highlighted to Chinese consumers across Alibaba’s platforms as an array of “must-see, must-eat and must-buy” products and services.
Alibaba’s eWTP and other activities in Malaysia include:
Logistics
- Commenced construction of a smart e-fulfillment hub in Kuala Lumpur under a Cainiao-Malaysia Airports Holding Bhd. joint venture to enable speedy storage, fulfillment, customs clearance and warehousing operations.
Cloud computing
- Opened a local internet data center to provide Malaysian enterprises a local choice to build their businesses and run their applications on powerful, reliable and secure world-class global cloud platform.
Training
- Trained thousands of individuals, entrepreneurs and cloud computing professionals under various programs in conjunction with leading Malaysian universities and government agencies to support Malaysia’s sustainable e-commerce development.
E-commerce
- Launched Malaysia Pavilion on Alibaba.com to promote quality Malaysian products to global buyers.
- Established a one-stop platform to provide export facilitation with services ranging from marketing and customs clearance, to streamlined permit application procedures and tax declaration and more.
- Hosted March Expo with MDEC and MATRADE to connect Malaysian wholesalers with global sales opportunities.
- Held “Access to China Consumers” seminar to help Malaysian exporters enter the China market with participation of more than 500 Malaysian merchants
- Announced the launch of Malaysia Week in July 2018 to promote a broad range of Malaysian products and services to China’s consumers
