KUALA LUMPUR: World e-commerce giant, Alibaba, has conducted a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce training programme for Malaysia's small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) Malaysia B2B Project Director, Terry Jiang said, the programme, held across nine major cities nationwide over the past two weeks, which ended on Monday, 18 December, attracted 330 SMEs.

"We aim to equip and empower Malaysian SMEs with the knowledge and tools necessary to succeed in the global trade" he told Bernama in a telephone interview.

The two-week programme, conducted by 10 e-commerce experts from Alibaba.com, was supported by Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC) and Malaysia External Trade Development Corp (MATRADE).

It provides capacity building for SMEs on e-commerce, starting with effective ways to market their goods on the online platform, logistics and payment system management and how to capture consumer preferences.

"As we now have about 2,000 SMEs onboard for Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ), it is important to enable them to know all the tools and know-how so that they can effectively tap into the global market" he said.

He said ongoing training programme will be carried out besides having a face-to-face approach, where it plans to conduct through video presentations available on its online platform soon.

The training programme, the latest collaboration in line with the eWTP, will allow an easier trade for SMEs between China and Malaysia as well as globally using the DFTZ platform.

DFTZ, a collaboration between the Malaysian government and Alibaba, went live on Nov 3 and Malaysia. It aims to be Asia's leading logistics hub by 2020.

Earlier in March, the Malaysia eWTP hub was launched to offer Malaysian SMEs the infrastructure for doing commerce with services encompassing e-commerce, logistics, cloud computing, mobile payment and talent training.

In a statement, MDEC chief operating officer, Datuk Ng Wan Peng, said the programme will boost the adoption of e-commerce in the country and raise the SMEs' competitive edge in the global market via digital means.

"E-business and commerce is clearly the future of global trade. We are delighted to roll out the training programme with Alibaba for our local SMEs" he said.

MATRADE chief executive officer, Dr Mohd Shahreen Zainooreen Madros, said e-commerce is the way forward in an international trade.

"SMEs can now enter the global market at a cost they can afford and a rate that is much faster compared to the conventional way of doing trade, hence turning them into global entrepreneurs" he said in a statement.

To-date, Malaysia has 907,065 SMEs, representing 98.5 percent of the total establishments.