From 27 to 28 April 2016, ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) organized a tour for Commercial Counsellors and officials from the Embassies of Brunei, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam to visit Hangzhou. The delegation visited well-known e-commerce companies such as the Alibaba group, and exchanged views with them.
At the meeting with Alibaba, Mr. Li Yuan, Director of Trade and Investment Division of ACC, noted that Alibaba had opened 16 national pavilions including the pavilions for Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, which had played an important role in strengthening ASEAN-China trade relations and promoting ASEAN products and culture in China. The upgraded ASEAN-China FTA had just completed. The parties were encouraged to take this opportunity to deepen their trans-border e-commerce cooperation, to provide easy access for ASEAN products to China’s market and build efficient platform for Chinese customers to buy ASEAN products and experience ASEAN culture. The senior managers of Alibaba group briefed on the operation of the company, saying that Alibaba set “globalization” and “innovation” as its mottos at the current stage. ASEAN countries were rich in resources and had a great number of SMEs. Many ASEAN products had huge potential in China’s market. For the ASEAN enterprises who had interest to cooperate with Alibaba in trans-boundary e-commerce, Alibaba would offer them an “eco-system” including training, logistics, and financial services. The delegation had active discussions with Alibaba on the issues of e-commerce quality supervision, online payment, logistics and transportation, etc.
The delegation also visited Zhejiang Dayuan Bonded Processing Workshop, experienced the traceability of the supply chain for imported fresh food, and exchanged views for the possibility of future cooperation with the company.