E-commerce To Play Vital Role In Asean's Economic Development, Says Ma

From Nurul Hanis Izmir NANNING (CHINA), Sept 13 (Bernama) -- Trading, via the e-commerce platform, will play an important role in the economic development of ASEAN going forward, says Alibaba Group Chairman, Jack Ma. Ma said the group had been promoting China's products and services, for example in the services and construction industries, while helping create jobs for more than three million people within it. Next, he added, the group aims to participate in the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and assist young entrepreneurs excel in their businesses via the e-commerce platform. "We will enhance our investment in and development of local SMEs, as well as ASEAN's young entrepreneurs," Ma said during the four-day, 13th China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO), which began on Sept 11 here. He also said that despite the challenges in trading through this channel, the technological change will bring more benefits, especially to developing countries. "Developing countries will be more confident about the changes from the data era. As long as they (developing countries) want to open up and do more trading via the e-commerce platform, globalisation will bring us a better future," he added. Ma said Lazada is a company in which the Alibaba Group invested, and it has today become an important e-commerce platform brand for ASEAN. Alibaba is a Chinese e-commerce company that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via its web portals. Founded in 1999, the group also provides electronic payment services through its shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services. CAEXPO is an annual event, co-sponsored by China and the 10 ASEAN countries. It is aimed at promoting cooperation and the common development of China and ASEAN. Trade between China and the bloc stood at US$470 billion last year, up by almost 60 per cent from 1991 when ties were first established. Meanwhile, China's Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli said his country and ASEAN need to strengthen the alignment of development strategies. "We want to better synergise the initiatives under the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with the development strategies of individual ASEAN members and the grouping as a whole. "We need to effectively implement the '2+7' cooperation framework as well as the third five-year action plan of our strategic partnership and promote a better win-win scenario through more practical cooperation," he added. He also said China and ASEAN need to strengthen cooperation over productivity capacity and power growth. In doing that, he added, China is willing to cooperate on the basis of voluntarism, equality and mutual benefit. "We also have to enhance financial cooperation to provide strong support for economic cooperation. "China stands ready to work with ASEAN countries to fully harness the role of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road fund, in providing funding support for infrastructure connectivity and production capacity cooperation in the region," Zhang added. --BERNAMA