Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma speaks at an event at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Oct. 16 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo : Getty Images)
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has tied up with two state banks and state agencies in Thailand to set up a scheme that would help promote the country's small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) abroad using Alibaba's platform, the Bangkok Post reported.
At least 20 SMEs were chosen to break into the business-to-business (B2B) export markets with assistance from Alibaba, SME Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of Thailand (Exim Bank) and the Industrial Promotion Department.
The two banks have selected the 20 pilot companies from among their clients. The companies will take free e-commerce courses from Alibaba staff to train them on how to use the platform. They will also have the opportunity to study Alibaba's customers' data to help them understand the demands of their businesses.
"After that we will let these SME owners decide themselves whether they will go abroad through Alibaba's platform or not, because using Alibaba's channel to export will entail more costs than using the B2B platform by themselves," SME Development Bank's president Mongkol Leelatham said.
According to Mongkol, the pilot firms, which sell mostly innovative products with a shelf life of at least one year, must have proper financial and accounting management of their businesses.
"SMEs in provincial areas are our focus as they have a lot of potential but lack marketing knowledge and opportunities compared with those in Bangkok," the bank president said.
The report said that the pilot project aims to inspire other SMEs to use B2B to expand their markets overseas.
"There are at least 300,000 SMEs across the country that have the potential to connect to business operators in other countries via e-commerce platforms. We hope we can encourage these groups to join us in driving the country towards Thailand 4.0," Mongkol said.
According to the report, about 24,000 SMEs out of 300,000 have the potential to go directly to export markets while 44,000 of them can do it through local distributors.
"This is because the export-import documents are very complicated," Mongkol explained. "Only those who are experienced in documentation for exports and imports can manage it by themselves. The e-commerce platform will reduce the complications stemming from documentation but the exporters also need to adjust themselves in terms of goods delivery as they should be able to send merchandise within 24 hours."
Pisit Seriwiwattana, president of Exim Bank, however, said that B2B does not require much documentation, which makes it totally different to the business-to-customers (B2C) model used by online sellers.
The training venue will be provided by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC), which has also joined the scheme. The university hopes to recruit at least 20,000 SMEs to join Alibaba's e-commerce training programme within 12 months.
About 600 Thai companies are currently using Alibaba's platform, the report said.
