KARACHI: As many as 85 per cent of Pakistani sellers on Alibaba.com, one of the largest global platforms for business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, are based out of a single city: Sialkot.

Speaking at a sellers’ summit organised by the international B2B platform on Thursday, Alibaba.com Pakistan Business Growth Manager Muhammad Sadiq said there’ve been 3.2 million listings from Pakistani sellers so far. The largest concentration of Pakistani sellers is in the apparel and clothing category with a 63pc share, followed by sports, entertainment, health, medical, tools, hardware and minerals categories.

Speakers from Alibaba.com highlighted multiple opportunities for Karachi-based exporters, manufacturers, wholesalers, traders and retailers to reach the digital B2B buyer base via the international platform. The summit resulted in 700-plus registrations.

Speaking via Zoom, company’s Country Head Song Song said Alibaba.com provides micro and small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with a full range of digital, one-stop, integrated B2B services for global trade.

“Up to 70pc of global MSMEs have seen a sales decline and two-thirds have reported their sales dropped by 40pc due to the global pandemic,” he said while highlighting the need for local companies to go international.

Pakistan’s B2B e-commerce market is expected to achieve an annual growth rate of 28pc in the coming three years, he said. The inflation-led recession, Russian-Ukraine war and oil scarcity have created some economic challenges. The rupee is getting weaker with respect to the dollar but growing exports is the best counter-measure for bringing the national economy back on track, he said.

“Pakistan has now become our top overseas supplier market in terms of the number of paying suppliers,” he said, encouraging the local businesses to grow beyond their home market and “get discovered by more than 40m-strong global online buyer community on Alibaba.com”.

He lamented the fact that only 3.3pc of the total Pakistani exporters on Alibaba.com are from Karachi. “These dynamics should change. I invite all exporters from Karachi to embrace the export e-commerce route,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2022