Just a few months after opening a Russian subsidiary, and while its subsidiary AliExpress has become Russia’s number one B2C platform, Alibaba is making a new step to assert its leadership in the Russian e-commerce scene. The Chinese e-commerce giant has just inked a memorandum of cooperation with Gazprombank, the subsidiary of the Russian gas monopoly, to stimulate cross-border exchanges via Gazprombank’s B2B marketplace.
Thousands of Chinese Alibaba sellers or buyers will be connected to the Russian marketplace, receiving the inquiries of its users.
Transactions will be settled either in rubles or in yuans, as Ibragim Paskachev, general manager of the Gazprombank marketplace, explained to Russian news agency TASS.
Russian buyers will benefit from Alibaba’s “Trade Assurance,” which entitles buyers to receive compensation if a seller does not deliver the ordered goods.
The two partners plan to create a joint electronic communications center to standardize terminology and technical documentation in both languages. Not only will this facilitate online search and transactions, it will also enable the optimization and automation of certain logistical and customs clearance processes, Paskachev underlined.
No fewer than 13 procedures using this standard are currently being tested manually. The electronic platform is scheduled for release in mid-2016.
Introduced in the early 2000s, the Russian B2B market is huge, with all stages of procurement, from planning to contract award, conducted online. Last year, according to market leader B2B-center.ru, this market amounted to hundreds of billion USD, including the volume of electronic purchases in both public and private sectors.
Source: TASS
- This and other e-commerce topics will be discussed on October 5-6 at the China-Russia E-Commerce Summit. This event,co-organized by East-West Digital News, will gather market players, service providers, government officials and top experts from both countries. For more information, click here.
