HANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Today, Alibaba Group hosted the Swedish Prime Minister and delegates from more than 20 Swedish companies, accompanied by officials from Business Sweden, at Alibaba’s Xixi Campus in Hangzhou to explore collaboration between Alibaba and Swedish businesses.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven gave a speech at the event and representatives of Alibaba provided an overview of the company’s ecosystem and globalization strategy.

In opening remarks, Jack Ma, founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, said: "Today we have 80 Swedish brands using Alibaba’s services already and we are confident the number will grow in the next couple of years. Alibaba is determined to support small businesses, globalization and free trade, and we want to empower Swedish companies to come to China.”

He added that there is huge potential to grow the annual number of Chinese tourists to Sweden through Alibaba’s online travel platform Fliggy.

“Sweden is the most innovative economy in the EU and Alibaba is the world’s largest retail commerce company. To me this is a perfect match. I look forward to seeing a growing number of Swedish brands benefiting from the increased co-operation with Alibaba,” said Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden.

Also announced at the event was the launch of a new Swedish store on Tmall.com. Entitled ‘Kaimen’ (‘Open Door’), it features a range of premium Swedish brands including Baby Bjorn, Twistshake, Blueair and Stiga Games. In addition, Swedish agricultural cooperative Lantmännen announced that it has started selling cereal on Tmall Global.

“Swedish brands are already in the top 20 list of most purchased products on Tmall Global,” said Terry von Bibra, General Manager Europe, Alibaba Group. “And there is a growing interest in Swedish brands among Chinese consumers who value Swedish quality, creativity and style. We are excited to forge even stronger relationships with Swedish merchants to continuously expand the range of product selection to better serve the needs of the 454 million annual active buyers on our e-marketplaces,” he added.

Swedish brands already on Tmall and Tmall Global include Daniel Wellington, Urbanears and Foreo.

Among the various services Alibaba’s ecosystem has to offer, Tmall’s business-to-consumer (B2C) platforms are key solutions for Swedish merchants looking to enter the vast China market. These platforms include:

• Tmall.com (http://www.tmall.com), China's largest third-party B2C platform for brands and retailers
• Tmall Global (http://www.tmall.hk), a cross-border solution and an extension of Tmall’s B2C business for imports to China

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group's mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company is the largest online and mobile commerce company in the world in terms of gross merchandise volume. Founded in 1999, the company provides the fundamental technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help businesses leverage the power of the Internet to establish an online presence and conduct commerce with hundreds of millions of consumers and other businesses.

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