Alibaba, affiliate Ant Financial and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan agreed to encourage exports from the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Pakistan, while training these businesses to better use Alibaba’s platforms for ecommerce.
Alibaba is also supporting the growth of SMEs in developing countries by increasing access to ecommerce.
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% of all web traffic in the year ending January 31. However, 18% of the population is currently online (35.1 million out of a total 194.8 million).
Over the past two months, Alibaba and its affiliates have signed several agreements with Malaysia’s government and Malaysian enterprises to realise the 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.
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