Chinese e-commerce giant to promote Indian SME products

Sai Nikesh | The Dollar Business The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on March 30, 2015, announced its future business plans in India. As part of his visit to India, Alibaba's Chairman Jack Ma met the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and expressed the Company’s willingness to empower small businesses in India and also discussed the modalities involved. In his meeting with the Prime Minister, Ma discussed way and means of implementing the Business-Business (B2B) model in promoting organic farm goods, handicrafts and other products from a rural to the global level. Pointing out to the Business-Company (B2C) model as an American model, the Alibaba founder was learnt to have stated that the ‘Business-Business (B2B) model is best suitable for India and China’. This move by the e-commerce giant to expand and empower small businesses in India, is a part of its key strategies over the next three years, to globalise the firm and extend its services to more small businesses across the world. Earlier during his last visit to India in November 2014, the Alibaba founder had informed that the Company is willing to invest more funds in India and is keen to work with the Indian entrepreneurs and technology companies. The plans by e-commerce giant comes in line with the Indian government’s pitch for e-commerce platforms to promote Indian products at a global level. The Indian government has been taking steps to bring promote Indian products through e-commerce platforms as a process of online marketing strategies. In this regard, the Prime Minister had also urged the Ministry of Tribal Welfare to explore various possibilities for online marketing of tribal products through the e-commerce platforms. Besides this, the government had also received requests from other Indian sectors over the development of India into one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in Asia-Pacific.    

This article was published on March 31, 2015.