Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. Quashin, president of the
Speaker 1: business to business marketplace Alabama dot Com, spoke exclusively with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg TVs Annabelle Drulers. They discussed China's economy, tariff impacts
Speaker 1: on the SMEs that use the platform, as well as
Speaker 1: the company's expansion plans and AI usage.
Speaker 2: Let's just talk about the outlook for China's economy in
Speaker 2: particular and what you're seeing, because I think what we
Speaker 2: were discussing is that there's been quite a divergence or
Speaker 2: a little bit of a divergence that's coming out now
Speaker 2: between what we're seeing in the private readings and the
Speaker 2: official readings for PMI in terms of the private survey
Speaker 2: is looking a little bit more optimistic from the latest numbers,
Speaker 2: and that's the one that really tracks the smaller businesses
Speaker 2: and attracts the exporters in particular, and that's really what
Speaker 2: you're seeing as well, as president of Alibaba dot Com.
Speaker 2: So based on the businesses that you're dealing with with,
Speaker 2: what would you say is the overall health and outlook
Speaker 2: at this point in time.
Speaker 3: So Alibaba dot Com, actually we serve around two hundred
Speaker 3: thousand Smese suppliers in China and also globally. And what
Speaker 3: do we see this year nervous last year? I think
Speaker 3: several things. The first one is more and more Smese.
Speaker 3: It's willing to participate in the global trade, so they
Speaker 3: are more willing to sell globally. So one example is
Speaker 3: that so there's a small city in EU, you know,
Speaker 3: all commodities actually setting and distributing in you. And for
Speaker 3: the first to the first quarter of this fiscal year,
Speaker 3: so customers in you who join Alibaba dot Com actually
Speaker 3: grow seventy percent comparis last year.
Speaker 2: Where are you really aiming to expand than Alibaba dot Com?
Speaker 2: Which markets are you going after?
Speaker 3: So let's say from the buyer side and the supplier side,
Speaker 3: So from from supplies side, actually we expand the supplies.
Speaker 3: So now it's not only in China, but it also
Speaker 3: expand globally as well, like in Southeast Asia, in career,
Speaker 3: in Europe, in Mexico and the North America and LUSI.
Speaker 3: Actually we do acquisition in Europe Colle visible, which is
Speaker 3: the biggest kind of marketplace in Europe VOV for the
Speaker 3: Dutch language area and Europeages for the rest of Europe.
Speaker 3: So now we are supporting them from the technology perspective
Speaker 3: to enable them to boost from the yellow pages to
Speaker 3: transactions to the kind of like like the guarantee services
Speaker 3: that we're provided to help the intro business kind of trade,
Speaker 3: and Aliba dot Com can help the global asms do
Speaker 3: the cross border trade. So this this is what I'm
Speaker 3: going to expand and for the buyers that actually it
Speaker 3: is the global buyers. The buyers which is booming now
Speaker 3: is in US and Europe and also in Latin America,
Speaker 3: and soisition is kind of for deraping countries and different
Speaker 3: countries actually help the different type of demands for different categories.
Speaker 2: The value proposition I think from a buyer is pretty clear.
Speaker 2: You can say, but perhaps a product for a cheaper price.
Speaker 2: What do you think then that there are concerns around
Speaker 2: over capacity, for instance, from a lot of different European countries,
Speaker 2: how do you respond to those concerns Because that sort
Speaker 2: of does speak quite closely to the Alibaba dot Com
Speaker 2: model of being able to connect more supplies to new
Speaker 2: markets and offer good products for lower prices.
Speaker 3: So in one way that we are kind of enriched
Speaker 3: our selections. There's multiple supplies, like supplies in Europe. So
Speaker 3: we see there's a great supplies for fashion in France,
Speaker 3: like wires in Italy and the machineries in Germany and
Speaker 3: Italy as well, so there's a lot of SMEs actually
Speaker 3: doing a great job on Alababa dot com and as well,
Speaker 3: as we mentioned before that we do acquisition investment on Visible,
Speaker 3: we do that not only for it's not only for
Speaker 3: a kind of financial investment. We are going to use
Speaker 3: our technology at the no House to kind of boost
Speaker 3: their technology engine to help the small and medium business
Speaker 3: within the Europe to do the kind of intra Europe collaboration.
Speaker 3: So I think there's a one part. The second part
Speaker 3: is the fundamental rule for global trade is supply and demand.
Speaker 3: So if there is a demand require for kind of
Speaker 3: quality product with a better price, and what we are
Speaker 3: going to provide is to lower the barrier for both sides.
Speaker 3: So the same is them selfs entrepreneurs themselves can survive
Speaker 3: and get enough margin out of that that can make
Speaker 3: a business.
Speaker 2: Earlier this year we did some reporting from the Canton
Speaker 2: Trade Fair and some of the different people that we
Speaker 2: were speaking to this so that even with the risk
Speaker 2: of some very hefty tariffs and that referring to the
Speaker 2: possible Trump tariffs if you were elected president again, but
Speaker 2: they would be able to withstand them given that the
Speaker 2: price is so competitive that's coming from China, and the
Speaker 2: quality as well is also so high that it still
Speaker 2: is a very competitive and compelling way or area or
Speaker 2: country to purchase from. What's your view on how much
Speaker 2: Chinese companies in the SMEs that are on the platform,
Speaker 2: how much can they withstand that risk of extra levees
Speaker 2: being applied to their products?
Speaker 3: Okay, all entrepreneurs, from their eyes, there are many problems
Speaker 3: that they need to serve. So what a product I'm
Speaker 3: going to provide, what type of employees A'm going to hair?
Speaker 3: And what about the kind of how to say the
Speaker 3: economics pax and pariff is only one part.
Speaker 1: Of the tax.
Speaker 3: So when we see the global supply and demand, we're
Speaker 3: starting from the fundamental ones and how to the efficiency
Speaker 3: and how to help them to build up their own
Speaker 3: business based on the global supply chain which is more
Speaker 3: competitive for the Assamese. So that's just what do.
Speaker 2: We do today.
Speaker 1: That's Alabama dot Com president Qua Juang speaking with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: TVs Annabelle Rulers to hear more conversations like this, Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Talks podcast.