PUTRAJAYA: The Pan Asian e-Commerce Alliance (PAA) is confident that 10,000 of its 340,000 members from 11 countries will register with its Pan Asia Exchange (PAE), a business-to-business (B to B) e-marketplace portal, in the next six months.
At the soft launch of PAE yesterday, Datuk Patrick Wong, executive director of Dagang NeXchange Bhd (DNeX), a member of PAA, said PAE is an open platform designed to bring buyers and sellers together.
“What we have here is the ‘Ali Baba of B to B’,” said Wong.
PAA is a group of 11 service providers from 11 Asian countries, authorised by the Customs Department and other trade regulatory agencies in their respective countries to provide information technology infrastructure and services to facilitate trade globally.
“We are doing this to provide a marketplace for our members. We want to get as many of our 340,000 members registered with PAE,” said PAA chairman and president of intercommerce Francis Norman O. Lopez.
Lopez said PAE is a joint collaboration between member countries whose long-term plan has always been to see an expansion of what the PAA has been doing all this while.
“We know them (the sellers) and they know us. We handle their import and export declarations. We are helping them expand their businesses further. This is a trusted B to B e-commerce platform, and we want to contribute positively to e-commerce in the region,” said Lopez.
The 340,000 members are from wide-ranging industries and sectors, including palm oil, automotive, oil and gas and manufacturing.
PAA is confident that the portal will take off regionally and globally as its members have a proven track record with the alliance’s member countries and additionally by requiring the buyers to also register with the portal to access PAE’s services, the sellers will know who the buyers are.
“PAE can serve as an effective global platform for businesses to source for reliable Asian suppliers and buy goods or services from them, as well as for Asian businesses to market their goods or services to international buyers. Both buyers and sellers can register online via the PAE website by submitting relevant information, which will be verified by the local PAE operator,” said Wong.
Founded in 2000, PAA’s current members comprise CAT of Thailand, CIECC of China, CrimsonLogic of Singapore, DNeX (through subsidiary Dagang Net Technologies Sdn Bhd) of Malaysia, InterCommerce of the Philippines, KTNET of Korea, NACCS of Japan, TEDMEV of Macao SAR, Tradelink of Hong Kong SAR, Trade-Van of Chinese Taipei and PT EDI of Indonesia.