New Delhi: World’s leading B2B e-commerce portal Alibaba.com from the China based Alibaba Group and Infomedia India Limited, India’s largest Yellow Pages and special interest publishing company from the Network 18 group, on Tuesday announced a multi-year strategic partnership aimed at addressing the small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) market in India. Alibaba.com has more than 400,000 members in India.

The website Alibaba.com) focuses on global importers and exporters while its China marketplace Alibaba.com.cn focuses on suppliers and buyers trading domestically in China. Together, these portals form a community of more than 27 million registered users across 200 countries.

India has more than eight million SMEs that account for nearly 40% of the country’s industrial output. SMEs employ around 30 million people. According to industry estimates three million SMEs are engaged in B2B trade and around a million are in the export business. With this partnership, Alibaba.com is expecting to double its Indian membership base in the near future.

David Wei, Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba.com, said, ”With its huge growth potential, India is a very important and strategic market for Alibaba.com and is a top priority for our global expansion plans.” “We believe this alliance media will help us become the dominant online B2B marketplace in India by the end of 2008, he said. Prakash Iyer, Managing Director, Infomedia, said, “The Infomedia-Alibaba partnership will bring value to Indian SMEs by giving them a larger, multi-media business platform encompassing domestic and global trade services.”

Alibaba launched a special India Channel in late 2007 with a view to form a link between Indian suppliers find local and global buyers for their products and services. “The India Channel has been well received by members, with more than 20,000 Indian companies signing up each month since January 2008,” says the company.