Coun. Chak Au hopes to turn Richmond into an international trade hub and believes working with the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will help realize that.
Au took a trip last month to the headquarters of Alibaba in Hangzhou, China, to lobby the company to set up at least one e-trade processing centre in Richmond.
Au told the Richmond News that prior to the trip, which was undertaken during his vacation, he had met with Steve Wang, general manager of Alibaba North America, after the company’s May announcement that it would set up its first Canadian office in Vancouver.
“This is the first time Alibaba has contemplated an office in Canada. It would really bring the level of activities and promotion to a higher level, and help local businesses use their platform to sell products,” said Au.
“I told [Wang] I’d like to invite them to set up at least one e-trade processing centre in Richmond, where goods sent from abroad will stopover before being distributed to other parts of Canada.
“It will create jobs, generate business and benefit our logistics industry in Richmond,” he added.
Alibaba, which has a daily sales record of US$25 billion and manages 325,000 orders per second at peak, was initially not even aware of Richmond and instead had its sights set on Vancouver, according to Au.
“I told them that in Richmond last year we tried to bid for Amazon’s headquarters. Although we were not successful, we are ready to head in that direction, becoming a major e-commerce international trade centre,” said Au.
“I also said Richmond was the finalist for the federal ‘Smart City’ grant. We received $250,000 to write the plan. If we are successful, we would receive $10 million from the federal government to develop the plan.
“And because of Richmond’s proximity to the airport, we are the entry point to western Canada. Then they became interested in what Richmond could offer them.”
Au believes a processing centre is the first step for Richmond to engage with Alibaba, the chief rival of Amazon, in order to open up more opportunities for local businesses who could then take advantage of its platform.
“We have so many small to mid-size businesses in Richmond, but it’s difficult for them to enter overseas markets. Through e-commerce, they can really find a way to break into markets in Asia,” said Au.
Au said he understands some local businesses’ concerns about doing business with China due to differences in culture, language and ways of operating, but he believes e-commerce will minimize these.
“That’s why I think e-commerce is really the way to go. It really minimizes the difficulties between countries, companies and cultures. Companies here can sell directly to customers or to other businesses in China or Asia.
“My wish is that we can sell more to China, not the other way around. There is a huge trade deficit between China and Canada and we need to promote selling to other markets.”
Au said Richmond should ditch the mindset that it is the backyard of Vancouver, and instead look into opportunities that bring the city on to the international stage.
“When I talk about Alibaba to my colleagues, one asked, ‘what is Alibaba?’ It surprised me,” he said.
“Of course I won’t say everyone should know about Alibaba, but if people who are leading our city are not aware of Alibaba, after we entered the competition for the Amazon headquarters, they probably don’t know what’s going on.
“My vision for Richmond is that we should develop ourselves into an international trade hub; our economic development should not just rely on real estate.”
