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Alibaba to scale up cross-border e-commerce activities, engage more local exporters in joint campaign with hometown Hangzhou

  • Alibaba and the Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone agreed to jointly develop a number of brands and enterprises
  • Their campaign reflects renewed optimism after China’s exports beat expectations in June, growing 17. 9 per cent year on year to US$331.3 billion

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Alibaba.com, the international online wholesale marketplace of Alibaba Group Holding, will collaborate with authorities in Hangzhou to further develop cross-border e-commerce activities in the city. Photo: Shutterstock
Ann Cao
Alibaba Group Holding is ratcheting up efforts to boost its cross-border e-commerce operations through a new campaign with authorities in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, with the aim of helping more Chinese exporters expand in overseas markets amid weak consumption on the mainland.

Alibaba and the Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone on Thursday reached an agreement at an industry event in the city to help develop “a number of cross-border e-commerce brands and key enterprises” on the back of local government policy guidance and supporting measures, according to a report by state-run newspaper Economic Information Daily.

Their initiative will rely on Alibaba’s “comprehensive digital foreign trade service capabilities and local service centres”, the report said. E-commerce giant Alibaba, which is headquartered in Hangzhou, owns the South China Morning Post.

“Combined with the full-system, digital capabilities accumulated by Alibaba’s overseas digital business sector, Hangzhou is expected to be at the forefront of the benchmarking demonstration of digital transactions again,” said Zhang Kuo, president at Alibaba.com, the group’s international online wholesale marketplace that connects Chinese and overseas suppliers with buyers abroad.

A pilot zone for cross-border e-commerce was established in Hangzhou by the government of eastern Zhejiang province in 2015. Photo: Shutterstock
A pilot zone for cross-border e-commerce was established in Hangzhou by the government of eastern Zhejiang province in 2015. Photo: Shutterstock

Zhang credited the Hangzhou pilot zone, which was established by the Zhejiang provincial government in 2015, for its early deployment, representing the first such infrastructure dedicated to cross-border e-commerce in a Chinese city. There are now 132 of these pilot zones across the country.

Alibaba has had ties with the Hangzhou pilot zone though its various units, including global retail site AliExpress, Southeast Asian e-commerce platform Lazada, and the overseas operations of Tmall and Taobao Marketplace.
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