On Tuesday, Pakistan inked an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group to, specifically, promote the development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and financial services through e-commerce.
The contract has been inked between Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) and Alibaba Group. The agreement has been signed by Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir and the President of Alibaba Group Michael Evans. Moreover, on behalf of Alibaba Group, Senior VP of Global Business of Ant Financial, Douglas Feagin also bore presence during the visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the headquarters of the company.
The Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma and PM Nawaz Sharif observed the signing ceremony. It is relevant to mention that the development came into effect after a series of meetings between the representatives of two countries.
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While speaking about the collaboration, Jack Ma stated:
“The close collaboration between Pakistan and China in commerce could turn the irons brothers into golden brothers”
What does the MoU state?
TDAP, Alibaba Group and Ant Financial consented to nurture expansion of global exports of products by SMEs through e-commerce in Pakistan.
In addition, Alibaba will also conduct both online and offline training sessions for the SMEs for the purpose of assisting SMEs getting on-board the platform of Chinese e-commerce giant. Furthermore, the training programs will also help SMEs in enhancing exports via e-commerce.
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The role of TDAP would be to handpick SMEs to take part in the training sessions. On the other hand, Alibaba’s chief objective will be to present industry analysis to TDAP which will eventually assist the latter during the selection process.
In addition to the aforementioned development, all 3 parties have also agreed to enrich the expansion of financial services in Pakistan. The development will take place in regions such as mobile and online payments services. Additionally, Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP also established a contract to adopt cloud computing services to support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of SMEs in the country.
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