WorldFirst and Alibaba.com have entered a partnership to help Singapore’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) bolster their digital presence and expand their sales internationally, overcoming the constraints brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
WorldFirst will become Alibaba.com’s official channel partner in Singapore, helping local sellers gain access to the 26 million buyers from over 200 countries and regions on the platform. Through the partnership, WorldFirst will help the SMEs assess how best to leverage Alibaba.com and further assist them in navigating the platform’s variety of services. It will also facilitate cross-border payments.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a severe impact on businesses in the export sector, especially in the case of SMEs, many of which lack online presence and are still largely reliant on physically attending tradeshows to showcase their products.
With the ongoing pandemic causing many events to be scaled down, rescheduled, or even cancelled, the WorldFirst and Alibaba.com partnership will help Singapore’s SMEs reach customers and business partners around the world in an efficient and cost-effective way.
“Singapore’s exports have remained resilient amid the uncertainties and will continue to ride on the global trade recovery, and our timely partnership will allow WorldFirst and Alibaba.com to connect Singapore’s dynamic SMEs to millions of potential buyers across the world,” Peter Scully, Country Manager, WorldFirst Singapore commented.
“Alibaba.com has always been committed to supporting Singapore’s SME exporters with our digital solutions and this new partnership with WorldFirst will further expand our offerings to them to include digital cross-border payment tools,” said Andrew Zheng, Deputy General Manager of Alibaba.com.
“We hope that this joint effort makes exporting to the world even more accessible for Singapore business, especially amid COVID-19.”
