Export

Alibaba founder Jack Ma to advise David Cameron on how UK small businesses can boost their exports

The founder of ecommerce site Alibaba has been appointed by David Cameron to advise him on business particularly on boosting small businesses’ exports.

The announcement came ahead of a four-day state visit to Britain by China’s president XI Jinping, as Cameron looks to forge closer economic ties with the world’s second-largest economy. Both Cameron and chancellor George Osborne feel a closer relationship with China is crucial to building Britain’s economic growth in future years.

Cameron’s spokeswoman said the executive chairman of the Alibaba Group would be joining the prime minister’s Business Advisory Group, providing particular help and advice on how to get small and medium-sized British businesses boosting their exports and in particular accessing Chinese markets through platforms like Alibaba.

According to the latest FedEx Great British Export Report, the average UK SME exports 553, 000 a year to Europe and imports 535, 000, an average net surplus of around 18, 000 for those SMEs exporting to European countries. Some 53 per cent of British small businesses export, though the figure varies considerably by company size.

As it stands, 96 per cent of British small businesses that export, do so into Europe. Outside of Europe, the top markets are the US (35 per cent), Australia (24 per cent) China is exported to by 16 per cent of exporting British SMEs.

Some 58 per cent of British small businesses would like more support when it comes to trade bodies, the government and logistics providers in order to optimise success.

In July, the prime minister overhauled his entire advisory board to bring in a slew of chief executives as a ‘sounding board? on business matters ahead of his planned referendum on EU membership. Among those dropped from the board were Google’s Eric Schmidt and GlaxoSmithKline’s Andrew Witty.