Indian exports are falling since last 11 months, and Indian Government is now alarmed regarding their promises of achieving exports worth $300 billion by end of 2016.
In a move which has been described as first for any country, Indian Govt. will establish a massive international ecommerce hub for export/import, in the B2B niche. Through this portal, any Indian seller or buyer can connect with any businessman from any country, and easily conduct trade.
As per insider reports, this model of creating an online marketplace for B2B business has been inspired from the tremendous success of Alibaba. Several niche features of Alibaba’s online portal may be incorporated into this new project from Indian Govt.
An official on condition of anonymity said, “This is a very ambitious project which will add brand equity and no other country has such a portal. This has been in the works for quite some time now,”
Indian Govt.’s B2B Portal Will Have 1 Lakh Sellers
To start with, this Govt. sponsored B2B portal will have 1 lakh sellers from India, which would be scaled to 5 lakh in the coming days. By 2022, this portal will empower and train 40 crore Indian SMEs and tradesmen and teach them International trade in the most sophisticated manner.
As per some reports, no other project in the B2B domain can match this one from Indian Govt.
India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), which is a trust created by Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry under Government of India, will design and develop this B2B portal.
IBEF has been assigned the responsibility to propagate and advertise ‘Make in India’ initiative in overseas market. Thus, launch of this new B2B portal for International trade can be later merged with ‘Make in India’ initiative as well.
India Post Will Handle Worldwide Deliveries
Considering that no other logistics and shipping firm can match massive reach of India Post, Indian Govt. has asked them for ensuring worldwide deliveries of products via this new portal.
The exact details are not out yet, but based on statements from officials, it seems that Govt. will provide subsidies for international shipping, using India Post’s platform.
It has been made clear that all payments would be conducted on this portal itself, and no collaboration would be allowed for transactions. This will ensure safety and assurance of all financial transactions. Besides, vendors would be verified before integrating them into the system.
Influenced By Alibaba?
After disrupting international trade worldwide, Alibaba has made some aggressive announcements to tap Indian B2B market. They have already signed a MoU with CII to facilitate greater economic co-operation among Indian and Chinese vendors; and launched programs such as SMILE to provide one-stop solution for all Indian SMEs (which include shipping, finance, mentorship and more).
The new Indian ecommerce hub for B2B trade will be based on this model, as talks are already on to provide trade insurance and guarantee of timely delivery for Indian sellers.
Even other biggies such as Amazon and Walmart too are pushing for B2B trade, and launching various programs to tap Indian sellers in this niche.
IBEF will announce tenders for this new ecommerce hub for Indian sellers/buyers very soon. We will keep you updated as more details come in.