Alibaba International Station: Help small and medium-sized enterprises cultivate another 1 million foreign trade professionals

On October 27, Alibaba International Announced the launch of the "Million Foreign Trade Talents Program", which will work with more than 2,000 universities in the next three years to select 1 million cross-border e-commerce professionals for China's foreign trade SMEs, and open the cross-border e-commerce training simulation platform and related advanced training system to universities and SMEs free of charge. This is another important move of Alibaba International after the talent cultivation is included in the cross-border e-commerce digital service trade system.

Image source: Alibaba International Station

Since the covid-19 epidemic, the penetration rate of e-commerce around the world has increased significantly, and the trend of online procurement is irreversible; the shortage of digital professionals has become a "real problem" faced by small and medium-sized enterprises going overseas. According to the survey results of the National Service Outsourcing Human Resources Research Institute of Tsinghua University, more than 70% of cross-border e-commerce enterprises in China believe that the lack of professional talents has become the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of enterprises, especially the lack of digital operations, etc. Small and medium-sized enterprises are facing the pain points of less offline talent selection, low efficiency and high cost of online talent screening.

Alibaba International Station was previously recognized by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security as a cross-border e-commerce B2B data operation talent training and evaluation organization, and jointly issued the "Cross-border E-commerce B2B Data Operation Occupational Skill Standard". The talent program has so far helped small and medium-sized enterprises cultivate and introduce more than 30,000 foreign trade talents; the data also shows that more than 50% of the first orders of these young people have exceeded 10,000 US dollars.

A few days ago, the executive meeting of the State Council deliberated and adopted the "14th Five-Year Plan" Employment Promotion Plan. Gao Gao, deputy secretary general of the National Development and Reform Commission, explained to the media that it is necessary to highlight the training of high-skilled personnel and the training of urgently needed talents, focus on cultivating innovative, applied, and skilled talents, accelerate the training of urgently needed talents in key areas, and implement the project of updating the knowledge of professional and technical personnel.

Relevant surveys show that the gap between Small and medium-sized enterprises in China and foreign trade professionals exceeds 6 million. The "Million Foreign Trade Talent Plan" released by Alibaba International Station is an upgrade of the original talent project. According to the plan, Alibaba International Station will work with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Education and other ministries and commissions, tsinghua university and other university expert groups, industry leading associations to design cross-border e-commerce talent training hierarchical standards, as well as cross-border e-commerce education and training systems including teaching materials, courseware, question banks, examination systems, etc. Alibaba International has developed the first cross-border e-commerce training simulation platform and is permanently free to universities across the country. In order to help small and medium-sized enterprises retain talents, the international station also provides free advanced training to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Zhang Kuo, vice president of Alibaba Group and general manager of the international station, told reporters that the international station is not only a matching platform for cross-border trade, but also a digital cross-border service trade system including information flow, capital flow, logistics, talent cultivation, etc. "We will continue to re-invest in the infrastructure construction of cross-border e-commerce, adhere to long-term value, and help small and medium-sized enterprises in foreign trade to enhance their ability to resist risks and grow new digital capabilities." ”