Pakistan, on Tuesday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Alibaba Group Holdings Limited to promote the country’s exports by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through e-commerce.
The agreement between Alibaba and Trade Development Authority of Pakistan was signed by Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir and President of Alibaba Group Michael Evans and Douglas Feagin, Senior Vice President of Global Business of Ant Financial.
The development took place during Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif’s visit to the company’s headquarters. Alibaba Group’s Executive Chairman, Jack Ma and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif witnessed the signing ceremony.
Under the terms of the MoU, Alibaba, Ant Financial, and TDAP agreed to foster the growth of worldwide export of products by small and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan through e-commerce.
Online and offline training programs for the SMEs would also be conducted by Alibaba in a bid to assist SMEs with the company’s platforms.
TDAP will help identify suitable SMEs to participate in the training programs while Alibaba will be responsible for providing industry analysis to TDAP to assist them in their selection process.
In addition, Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP have also agreed to promote the growth of financial services in Pakistan in areas such as mobile and online payment services. The parties have agreed to adopt cloud computing services to support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of SMEs in the country.
