Zenith Bank Ghana, in partnership with the World Trade Center, has today, Friday, February 24th, 2023, launched a training programme, Alibaba Global Seller E-Course Master Class, on Alibaba.com.
The training session is intended to equip Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with the needed insight to promote their businesses on Alibaba’s website. The Alibaba Global Selling E-Course Master Class promises to train startups on how to list products on e-commerce platforms.
As part of Ghana’s quest to boost revenue from exports, it has become important to leverage technology to maximize the country’s exports.
During the programme launch, Divisional Head in Charge of Retail and Digital Markets at Zenith Bank, Kwame Adadey, said the bank is committed to supporting SMEs maximize their full potential and expand to global markets.
“Apart from the problem that sometimes SMEs face with facilities, they also face problems in accessing markets. Their reach in terms of making themselves is not always there. We felt that if we were able to come on board with Alibaba, we’d be able to help them reach out to the greater space outside, even beyond Ghana so that we can also help our SMEs grow beyond this particular country.
“There’s a market in Ghana and there’s a market there as well so we just felt that we needed to help them access it as well. It also brings in the much needed FX for the country.”
Mr. Adadey
Also speaking during the launch, Edem Yevutse, Executive Director for the World Trade Center, Ghana, said it was time for the African market to benefit from e-commerce platforms by listing their products instead of just buying from such platforms.
“Technology is enabling a lot of business opportunities that previously may not have existed. You’re able to interact and transact business with people all over the world with just the click of the button and it was in my opinion, an injustice that users in Africa could use the platform to import but couldn’t use it to export.
“It has always been possible to import on Alibaba.com; it means you can spend your money there but it wasn’t possible to earn money there and that is why, when we started to engage with Alibaba, we committed a lot of resources and leveraged our global network to put some pressure to ensure and Alibaba was more than willing to come to the table to negotiate.”
Mr. Yevutse
SMEs advised to keep themselves abreast with required product standards
Deputy Director of the Ghana Exports and Promotion Center, Abdallah Banda Z. Khalifa, also advised SMEs to keep themselves abreast with required product standards to be able to access other markets.
“To go online, to have a presence, you need to streamline certain activities to be able to present. Your packaging should be nice; you should have a good packaging and branding, and at GEPA, we have consistently tried to assist SMEs when it comes to packaging and labelling. When it comes to brand presence, we try as much as possible to assist them to be able to take advantage of our services.”
B.Z.Khalifa
The training session, which will last until the 9th of March, 2023 at the World Trade Center, Accra will see various experts take participants through practical training sessions on listing a business online.
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