Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma during his first visit to Africa in 2017was impressed by Africa’s young entrepreneurs and local businesses and pledged to support the growth of the digital economy in Africa. The partnership between Rwanda and Alibaba Group bears testimony to this. Rwanda Development Board and Alibaba Business School signed an agreement to start an undergraduate program to train students in international business and cross-border e-commerce. Twenty-two students are expected to enroll for the next session of the training, scheduled to begin in September. Most of them will have funding support from the Higher Education Council of Rwanda and Alibaba.
Rwanda was the first African country to join Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) an Alibaba-led initiative. The objective of the platform is to facilitate global trade for small- and medium-sized enterprises through e-commerce. Rwanda Development Board has agreed to extend its membership in the Electronic World Trade Platform for another three years. Alibaba Group has also pledged to increase imports from Rwanda. Its Retail-powered supermarket chain, Freshippo, also entered into a memorandum with the RDB, agreeing to import Rwandan chili to its 150 self-operated stores in China.
Speaking about the ongoing partnership with Rwanda, Alibaba Vice President of Global Initiatives Brian Wong remarked ‘’We’ve seen great momentum through our collaboration with the Rwanda Development Board to provide capacity-building to all key stakeholders who are drivers of the digital economy”.
