E-commerce promotes inclusive development: New evidence from Asia’s least developed countries

Since the beginning of the 21st century, global Internet technology and e-commerce have developed rapidly, and major changes have taken place in international trade entities, trade forms, business models, and organizational methods. This has promoted the inclusive development of world economic trade, enabled the fruits of economic development to benefit more countries and all people, and brought more development opportunities to small, medium and micro enterprises, rural areas, young people and vulnerable groups.

E-commerce has the attributes of inclusive trade, which can help small, medium and micro enterprises, underdeveloped countries and regions better embrace the digital economy, connect to international markets, create new jobs, promote industrial transformation, and promote economic and trade growth, thereby achieving sustainable and inclusive development.

Alibaba Group is committed to "making it easy to do business anywhere" and providing convenience for small, medium and micro businesses and consumers around the world. By providing new business infrastructure in the digital age, from e-commerce platforms, inclusive finance, smart logistics, to big data, cloud computing and cross-border e-commerce services, Alibaba Group is helping small, medium and micro businesses "buy globally and sell globally" and seek more innovative growth.

In March 2016, Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma proposed the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) initiative, calling for following the trend of digital economic development, helping small and medium-sized enterprises to develop, reducing trade and investment barriers, and incubating new trade rules. In September 2016, the eWTP initiative was included in the G20 Hangzhou Summit Communiqué as a core policy recommendation of the G20 Business Activities (B20).

Over the past year, the eWTP initiative has been highly recognized and actively supported by the international community. In November 2017, the first eHub under the eWTP initiative was launched in Malaysia. The eHub will provide infrastructure services such as e-commerce, logistics, cloud computing, mobile payments and talent training for Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, the eWTP initiative jointly proposed the "Enabling E-commerce" cooperation with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Cross-border e-commerce is building a free, open, universal and inclusive global trade platform. On this platform, hundreds of millions of consumers can "buy globally" and small and medium-sized enterprises can "sell globally", truly realizing global connection and global linkage. It is foreseeable that cross-border e-commerce will connect the world and become the main form of global trade in the future.

I would like to thank the International Trade Centre (ITC) for its efforts in this report. Over the years, Alibaba Group has worked hand in hand with ITC to help MSMEs expand their exports through cross-border e-commerce, especially those from the least developed countries. We are pleased to see that the number of registered sellers and active buyers from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Nepal on the Alibaba.com platform is increasing year by year, and the e-commerce capabilities of MSMEs in the five countries are gradually improving.

We hope that this report can provide some useful references for small and medium-sized enterprises and government agencies in developing countries and least developed countries to better understand and use cross-border e-commerce to integrate into the international market, stimulate trade potential, and achieve leapfrog development.

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