Alibaba.com seeks 5 mn more Indian businesses onboard

08 Dec '15

2 min read

Alibaba.com, a B2B arm of China's Alibaba Group, aims to more than double its user base in India over the next few years through on-boarding of over five million businesses on its wholesale trading platform.

Alibaba.com connects buyers and wholesale suppliers globally and has 40 million users worldwide and 4.5 million users in India.

"India is a very important market for us. It is the second largest for us after China. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are an important contributor to any economy and the same is the case with India... In the next few years, we hope to have 10 million businesses from India on our platform," Alibaba.com's Head of Global Business Development Timothy Leung told reporters in New Delhi.

Leung said that Alibaba aims to support the trading business of SMEs in India to help them grow and scale up. Alibaba.com has partnered with Indian organisations to launch an online platform Small and Medium Industries Leveraging Export (SMILE).

SMILE will provide Indian SMEs access to global business trading counterparts as well as one-stop trading solutions, including financing, logistics (domestic and cross-border), inspections and certifications, technology and SME trade-linked education, he said.

Partners for the SMILE programme in financing, credit rating, software, online lending, transportation, inspection and verification, and online logistics include ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Crisil Rating, Tally, Capital Float, Jeena, SGS and Mypacco

SMILE will offer combined trading solutions to Indian SMEs. It hopes to make cross-border trading easier that could potentially help over 10 million SMEs in India explore global trading opportunities in a more cost-effect way, Leung said. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India

More Textiles News - India...