Chinese e-commerce portal Alibaba is targeting small and medium scale space in Indian business to business segment. It is planning to empower the start-ups and to strike a partnership with the government for its signature projects like Make In India and Digital India.

On Monday, Alibaba.com, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group revealed that they are planning to double the count of Indian SMEs on its board. There are 4.5 million SMEs now and the number is set to rise to 10 million.

To make it more relevant for India and take on competition, a Hindi portal is also being planned by the group for its B2B business. Incharge of  Global Business Development for Alibaba, Timothy Leung  said, “This will make it more convenient for SMEs to get on board with Alibaba. We have a team of Indian tech support (at its headquarters in Hangzhou, China), working for making the Hindi version of the website. It (portal) will start in the next couple of months.”

The company on Monday also announced the launch of an online platform, SMILE (Small and Medium Industries Leveraging Export), at the CII Global SME Business Summit 2015. SMILE aims to provide Indian SMEs access to global business trading counterparts. Plus one-stop trading solutions — financing, domestic and cross-border logistics, inspections and certifications, technology and SME trade-linked education.

Source : Business Standard