KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 — The expansion of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s digital economy platform in Malaysia will not crowd out local small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs), International Trade and Industries Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamad said today.

"It is not correct that there will be an influx of Chinese products into Malaysia (because of Alibaba),” Mustapa said, stressing that perceptions of the digital economy platform must be changed.

Alibaba, in a strategic partnership with Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) last year launched the first Digital Free Trade Zone (DTFZ) in the country.

Mustapa said that SMEs must remove the mental block and participate in e-commerce, which can only benefit their businesses.

"The perception was that this (move) was more for the Chinese market, but if you look at the SMEs we awarded today, they use the Alibaba platform but some of them don’t have export anything to China,” he said after opening the Malaysian Digital Economy Forum here, where he recognised the efforts of SMEs who have transitioned to e-commerce in part of the DFTZ initiative.

"In fact, online business is even easier than offline. It is just a mental block in doing it,” he added.

DFTZ, the first digital platform outside of China, is expected to create RM 250 billion in trade value by 2025