Intermedia NZ’s Dale Spencer caught up with Kono Pure NZ’s China General Manager, Vivian Zhang, last week at a New Zealand business roundtable organised by Alibaba in Shanghai.
The discussion with NZTE Trade Commissioner, Damon Paling, Delegat Group’s Madeleine Ho and Country Managers for Go Healthy and Sanitarium focused on the growing ease of doing business in the world’s biggest market, along with online retail technology such as Tmall.com and Alipay which has enabled these brands to start building their brands and their sales in China.
In April this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced reforms to open up the economy to foreign imports and lower tariffs, instantly providing smaller countries and businesses with the option of introducing their goods to the world’s largest population of more than 1.3 billion.
Yi Qian, Global Business Director of Alibaba’s retail B2C Tmall.com, said that this the first real indication from President Xi Jinping that China is open for business.
“This is the beginning of the Chinese consumer upgrade and the next 5 years offers the biggest global opportunity to reach into China. Everything to Chinese people is new and interesting,” he said.
Chinese retail is growing by 11-12% per year currently, however imports far exceed this with a 20-30% growth expectation over coming year.
We have a trade exclusive China report in May’s FMCG Business magazine!
If you would like more information about how Alibaba Group can open the doors to China for your business, please contact New Zealand Country Manager, Pier Smulders on piersmulders@alibaba-inc.com
