Russian Export Center to open site on Alibaba’s Tmall soon

MOSCOW, Aug 30 (PRIME) -- The Russian Export Center and Alibaba have agreed on a text of memorandum to open a Russian section on Tmall Global, a Web site of the Chinese Internet behemoth, and the document will be signed at a G20 summit in Hangzhou in early September, Mikhail Mamonov, director of the center’s priority projects, said Tuesday.

The center’s head Pyotr Fradkov and Alibaba Group’s CEO Jack Ma agreed earlier to open a Russian “pavilion” on one of the Chinese company’s resources, Mamonov said.

“We chose Tmall Global, one of the most popular Chinese online sites. The pavilion’s main advantage is that the link will be placed directly on Tmall’s default page. We hope to see wider sales in our section thanks to conversion of traffic on the main page,” Mamonov said.

“We’ve agreed with Alibaba upon the text of the memorandum and hope it would be signed during the G20 meeting as it coincides with the pavilion’s launch.” The G20 summit will be held on Sunday–September 5.

Russian media content could be also promoted on Tmall, Mamonov said. “We hope to use Alibaba’s resources to promote Russian films, mainly animated ones. The list isn’t long, but it evidently has a potential on the Chinese market,” he said, adding that several of Russian cartoons are very popular in China.

The center wants to open a similar section on the Web site of another Chinese retailer, JD.com. “We need an interested party, a company-consolidator or a company-monobrand, around which we could create a virtual Russian pavilion…We are suggesting that everyone on the market enter JD.com and create a national pavilion. Everyone is still thinking,” he said.

The center is also interested in Alibaba’s proposal to enter the Russian market of micro-financing, and the matter could be also discussed during the summit.

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