Alibaba Group has entered into a strategic collaboration with the municipal government of Yiwu in Zhejiang Province to launch an eWTP hub in Yiwu to digitize trade infrastructure and empower new trade flows for the city, which is the world’s largest wholesale market.

Yiwu, in central Zhejiang Province, is the world’s largest wholesale market for daily commodities, attracting more than 500,000 buyers from around the world every year. Yiwu exports goods to more than 200 countries and regions and a majority of the 450,000 merchants in Yiwu are micro-, small- or medium-sized enterprises, a group Alibaba serves through its e-commerce platforms and other digital services.

This collaboration between Alibaba Group and Yiwu will make cross-border e-commerce more accessible to small players in global trade.

The eWTP hub, called the Yiwu eWTP Pilot Area, will build on the success of the eWTP hub established in October 2017 in Hangzhou, the capital of China’s Zhejiang Province.

With the support of the Zhejiang Provincial Government and experience from the Hangzhou eWTP hub, the Yiwu eWTP hub will use technology to promote innovation in trade and trade finance, establish a smart logistics hub and create greater inclusivity for businesses in Yiwu.

“Alibaba Group and Yiwu both have a long history of enabling small businesses to participate in global trade. While Yiwu brings together buyers from around the world, Alibaba’s platforms also bring together millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of consumers. The synergy of the two ecosystems will create value for our communities of users,” said Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group, at the launch ceremony of the Yiwu eWTP Pilot Area.

The Yiwu eWTP Pilot Area is the fifth eWTP hub under the global eWTP initiative following eWTP’s launch in Malaysia in March 2017. Since then, the eWTP project has launched hubs in Hangzhou (China), Belgium and Rwanda, respectively.

Initiated in 2016 by Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, the eWTP is a private sector-led, multi-stakeholder initiative that facilitates public-private dialogue to share best practices, incubate new trade rules and foster a more-integrated and inclusive policy and business environment to promote the development of e-commerce, trade and the digital economy.

The concept of eWTP was accepted as a major policy recommendation of the Business 20 (B20) and officially included in the 2016 G20 Leaders’ Communique.

Introduction to Xiaomi’s e-commerce platform Youpin

Alibaba’s data showed that in the first half of 2013, Yiwu B2B online transaction reached 2.51 billion yuan (USD 410 million). It is expected to hit 5 billion yuan (USD 816 million) by the end of 2013.

Yiwu, a city in the central area of Zhejiang province in China, is one of the most active free trade markets and famous for its small commodity trade.

Yiwu B2B online transaction in 2012 was 2.24 billion yuan (USD 366 million). The exports of suppliers in Yiwu reached 48.75 billion yuan (USD 7.96 billion) in 2012.

Besides, Alibaba also announced that the number of domestic B2B members in Yiwu was 22,512, and foreign trade B2B members in Yiwu was around 3,000 which occupied 3.75% of total B2B members in China by June 30, 2013.