(Yicai) April 16 -- Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of tech giant Alibaba Group Holdings, has won a major contract to upgrade the digital infrastructure of the world’s largest small commodities market with the aim of turning the Yiwu International Trade City into a global hub for small goods data trading and to make its services more user- and vendor-friendly.

Zhejiang China Small Commodity City Group, which is the market’s operator, is linking arms with Alibaba Cloud to build a digital hub that will be capable of ‘full-chain perception, intelligent decision-making and systematic collaboration,” according to the strategic partnership agreement signed by the two parties on April 15. The system will tap into the market’s trove of global trade data to link its daily business activities of product sales, logistics and payments with data flow.

Artificial intelligence will be used to upgrade different parts of the business, from product development and international marketing to supply chain management. Smarter, more personalized services will also be provided to sellers and buyers by building an industry-specific AI model. The aim is to develop the market’s digital brain into a global hub for data trading in small commodities, a digital trading scenarios display center, as well as a new product launching platform.

In terms of upgrading the 'Chinagoods' e-commerce platform, Commodity City will be responsible for the integration of data resources of various businesses operations as well as the running of the platform, while Alibaba Cloud will provide the cloud computing infrastructure, data platform construction and AI cloud computing power, the announcement said. No details were given about the amounts involved nor the detail aspects of the project.

The tie-up with Alibaba Cloud, which will last three years, will also make it easier for smaller merchants to go digital and help form a better, more collaborative ecosystem between the market and its many vendors.

Yiwu International Trade city is the world’s largest small commodity wholesale market, with more than two million different products, that cover all kinds of everyday goods. Last year, an average of 224,300 people visited each day, including more than 3,900 overseas buyers from over 230 countries and regions. The Chinagoods platform has over 4.8 million registered buyers, according to the company’s 2024 annual report.

Commodity City’s share price [SHA:600415] closed up 2.4 percent at CNY14.95 (USD2) today. Earlier in the day it climbed 4.5 percent to reach CNY15.26. The wider Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.2 percent at 3,276.

Editor: Kim Taylor