Small is beautiful

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Melbourne, Australia, 2 September 2007 – In his keynote address to the 2007 ABAC SME Summit, Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma declared that the future of global trade and e-commerce belongs to small and medium-sized enterprises.  “Small is beautiful,” said Ma.  “SMEs provide the engine for economic growth in Asia and are the future of e-commerce.”

Organized by the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), the Summit brought together business and political leaders from Australia and the APEC region to identify ways that can enhance SMEs’ competitiveness.  Jack Ma was a keynote speaker on the topic, “Internet, IT & Technology: How SMEs can maximize their role in this space & sell to the market.” 

In his speech, Ma discussed the role of the Internet, in particular e-commerce, in re-shaping the business world and powering SMEs by leveling the playing-field and offering them new ways to market their products abroad. He predicted a new era in which nimble SMEs will use e-commerce to out-compete large manufacturers.

“In 1999, we predicted that the winners in e-commerce would be the shrimps, not the whales.  Eight years later, our experience has proven that the companies which most benefit from e-commerce are SMEs who use the Internet to market their products and find business partners around the world.” 

Ma discussed how Alibaba.com, the world’s most-visited online business-to-business marketplace, had developed from a simple message board of products for sale to a dynamic community with more than 24 million of users worldwide.  “SMEs in Asia have leapfrogged past traditional methods of finding business partners.  More than just finding products and suppliers, SMEs now use the Internet to communicate with each other, build trust and manage their entire business online.  Alibaba will continue to lead this trend as we move from ‘Meet at Alibaba’ to ‘Work at Alibaba’.”

As part of the 15th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Sydney, Australia, Ma will also participate in a leadership dialogue on 8 September with APEC heads of state including Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang.