By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Rwandan Government and Chinese company, Alibaba, have signed an agreement to set up the first Electronic World trade Platform (eWTP) hub in Africa to facilitate shipment of products from the eastern African region to over half a billion consumers of Alibaba across the continent, reports say.
The eWTP provides small and medium-sized enterprises with operational infrastructure, such as commerce logistics, cloud computing, mobile payments and skills training.
The deal is expected to enhance the economic development and digital economy of Rwanda, ensure trading of Rwandan products, and facilitate tourism in the country.
According to the report, the Chinese platform will also ensure the improvement in the quality of products for trading in Rwanda.
Several brands of Rwandan single origin coffee are reportedly already getting a good response in Alibaba, which is the world’s largest online product selling platform.
Alibaba’s online travel platform Figgy and Rwandan Development board will work together to promote Rwanda tourism to Chinese customers.
Alibaba will also continue supporting Rwandan entrepreneurs through eFounders Fellowship program.
UNCTAD and Alibaba are training 1,000 entrepreneurs, 200 of them from Africa. Five Rwandan entrepreneurs have already graduated.
Alibaba has also organized Global E-commerce Talent Program (GET) which is a five-day course and 50 university lecturers across Rwanda have joined there to deepen their knowledge in e-commerce.
“I am delighted that Rwanda is the first eWTP partner in Africa, and I look forward to the development of an innovative digital economy here,” said Jack Ma, Founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group during his earlier visit in which Rwanda was admitted to the Electronic World Trade Platform, the first in Africa so far.
Ma had at that time said he was impressed by the country’s young entrepreneurs and local businesses and pledged to support the growth of the digital economy in Africa.
