iO7p5EW9DDWw.jpg (Photo : www.bloomberg.com)
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is planning to bank on the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2022 to be held in Qatar and the World Expo 2020 in Dubai, according to a statement from Alibaba senior vice president Sophie Wu on Wednesday.
During Wu's keynote speech at the Middle East and North Africa e-Commerce Conference, she said that the aforementioned major events in the Middle East will result in the growth of the region's e-commerce industry.
Wu also said that more Chinese buyers and sellers will be interested in the Middle East because of the upcoming events.
"Through our e-commerce platforms, local Arab traders can reach out to the Chinese market and to the world as Alibaba.com is China's largest global online wholesale marketplace by revenue, having in store thousands of products in over 40 industries with registered users in 240 countries," said Wu.
She added that the Middle East is one of Alibaba's top growing regions with its 2.6 million users.
The United Arab Emirates-based Frost & Sullivan expects the e-commerce volume in the region to grow up to $10 billion per year by 2018 from the current $2.5 billion, according to Dubai chamber of commerce and industry vice chairman Hisham Abdullah Al-Shirawi.
The Hong Kong-based e-commerce firm established a partnership with the Dubai chamber of commerce and several other e-commerce associations in the Gulf state.
To date, 12,000 member companies want to enter e-commerce, according to Al-Shirawi.
Dubai-based companies will get access to 1688.com, Alibaba Group's Mandarin online website.
The government of Dubai is hoping to adapt e-commerce to make Dubai a smart city, where citizens, firms and visitors can make government service transactions online.
Earlier this month, Alibaba reached $9 billion in online sales during China's largest online shopping bonanza, Singles' Day.
