China’s Alibaba Looks To Expand In Latin America

“Online trading giant Alibaba has expressed interest in doing business in Latin America with a particular eye on Mexico, Brazil and Argentina,” the China-based e-commerce company said in Mexico City on Saturday, Xinhua reports.

Chinese consumers are eager to obtain Latin American products, especially fresh produce such as Mexico’s avocado, Sherri Wu, head of Alibaba’s International E-commerce Business Development for the Americas, told Xinhua.

“Right now people love this food. Last month we sold over 10,000 orders (of avocado) through our channels and we would love to have more to offer to our customers,” said Wu.

According to the news agency:

“The need for “exotic” foodstuff in China comes from a growing middle class, which are more interested in quality merchandise from abroad.

Alibaba sees importing Latin American foodstuff into China as the first step toward doing business in the region and the company is working on closer ties with suppliers in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, Wu said.“

Alibaba Group has recently established a new company in Russia in order to further expand its business and support partners, and to facilitate interaction with the state authorities of Russia, Mark Zavadsky, AliExpress Business Development Director in Russia and the CIS told Kommersant.

“AliExpress reached 15.6 million customers a month in the second half of 2014, way ahead of other key market players, eBay and Amazon, who had just 3.7 million and 1.4 million customers a month, respectively,” RT reported.

China’s e-commerce model has been very successful so far and the retail market is expected to be worth $10.3 trillion by 2018, compared to the $5 trillion in sales projected for North America.