KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 — Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) today signed a three-way Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China’s Hangzhou Municipal Government and Alibaba Co Ltd  to enable the building of infrastructure for seamless cross-border e-commerce trade between Malaysia and China.

The MoU will also link the e-commerce hubs between the two countries, namely the China (Hangzhou) Comprehensive eCommerce Pilot Zone and Malaysia’s Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) to the Electronic World Trade Platform.

In a statement today, MDeC Chief Executive Officer Datuk Yasmin Mahmood said the MoU would further strengthen the collaboration between the two countries and its companies and, ultimately bring DFTZ to the next level.

“We want to help Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to overcome the complexity of doing cross-border trading, remove barriers, support them in realising their full economic potential and ensure that they would be able to enjoy the benefits of global commerce.

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“The eCommerce hubs, linking the two countries, will allow Malaysian SMEs to conduct global trade with China, via Hangzhou port, with ease,” said Yasmin.

She also said that  Alibaba had always been a strong partner in ecommerce for Malaysia.

“The combined gross merchandise value generated from its  various retail platforms such as Tmall and Tmall Global had reached US$57 million (RM247.6 million) to date.

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“Now, our goal is to double that figure,”she said, adding that coffee, durian and cookies were currently the top three product categories carried by the ecommerce platforms. 

Meanwhile, Alibaba Group Chief Executive Office Daniel Zhang said the partnership with MDEC would enable the parties to create the essential infrastructure for digital trade, and achieve Alibaba’s goal to serve 2 billion consumers, create 100 million job opportunities and support 10 million businesses.

By leveraging Alibaba’s Internet technology and big data, the parties would facilitate cooperation between public and private enterprises in Hangzhou and Malaysia to boost cross-border trade, by providing SMEs easier access to customs clearance, inspection and permit issuance. — Bernama