Global internet giant Alibaba.com has signed a first Channel Partnership deal with World Trade Centre Accra, a member of the Strategic Initiatives Limited Group, marking its first significant entry into the sub-Saharan African market.
The largest B2B marketplace in the world, Alibaba.com provides a wholesale marketplace for millions of buyers and sellers to conduct business. For product sourcing and purchases, it has always been feasible to open an account on Alibaba.com from Ghana and the majority of other nations. The Global Gold Supplier (GGS), Verified Seller Mark, and Key Word Advertisement (KWA), however, were not previously accessible to customers in Sub-Saharan Africa but are now available on the Alibaba.com platform for exporters (sellers).
SMEs and exporters can connect with millions of new buyers globally using the resources offered by Alibaba.com. This has the potential to revolutionise Ghana and Africa. Strategic Initiatives Limited and the World Trade Center Accra's collaboration to develop Alibaba.com's first channel partnership in sub-Saharan Africa offers a singular route for Ghanaian businesses to access new prospects in the international market, with its attendant advantages:
greater exports and earnings in foreign currency; the creation of jobs; the reduction of poverty; and inclusive economic growth
Alibaba.com’s B2B marketplace serves forty million buyers from more than 200 countries globally. The platform receives 400,000 (four hundred thousand) enquiries daily. The entry of Alibaba.com into Ghana will open a golden era of global business opportunities for Ghanaian SMEs, manufacturers and exporters. With Alibaba.com’s Request For Quote (RFQ) service, Ghanaian exporters no longer have to wait for buyers to find them. Alibaba.com receives 20,000 (twenty thousand) RFQs daily from serious global buyers and generates data on in-demand products covering more than 5,000 (five thousand) industries daily. This means that Ghanaian exporters can be on the front foot and receive information on buyers searching for products, and be able to contact them first.
Alibaba.com also provides critical support and training for SMEs and large corporates to build successful e-commerce, business models. The training and capacity-building programs conducted by Alibaba.com have helped prepare companies worldwide to enhance product and service offerings and gain access to global markets. These programs, now available in Ghana, will build on the capacity of Ghanaian companies to enter new markets. Ghanaian companies can also directly participate in Alibaba.com’s groundbreaking online trade shows.
Potentially, the biggest winners of Alibaba.com’s entry into Ghana will be SMEs and large corporates operating in the Non-Traditional Export (NTE) space. This will undoubtedly provide a shot in the arm for the Government of Ghana’s National Export Development Strategy (NEDS), which seeks to grow Ghana’s NTEs from $2.8 billion in 2020 to $25.3 billion by 2029. Other Government initiatives such as the One District One Factory (1D1F) Initiative and YouStart Program could gain massively from a partnership with Alibaba.com.
By working closely together, government, industry players and the team at Strategic Initiatives Limited can leverage the benefits of Alibaba.com to position Ghana to take advantage of the new opportunities being availed by the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement.
The official launch of Alibaba.com in Ghana will be on the 12th of October, 2022, at the World Trade Centre Accra, to be held alongside a two-day exhibition to showcase Ghana’s export potential. The launch is an open invitation to all stakeholders to engage with the Alibaba.com team on how to maximize potential gains for Ghana.