(Yicai Global) March 9 -- Southeast Asian online marketplace Lazada has awarded Chinese women for the first time at the Alibaba Group Holding-controlled platform's Lazada Forward Women Awards.

The three Chinese winners among this year's total of 21 are Wang Huachun, founder of women’s underwear brand FallSweet, Li Ping, who runs bike parts seller Newbie Bike Store, and Fu Dan at home revocation equipment retailer Jinhua Maixi Tools, the Singapore-based platform announced on the International Women’s Day yesterday. This was the company's second annual event to honor female entrepreneurs.

The winners are seizing opportunities. Southeast Asia will be the next target market for merchants to tap into, largely due to the improving logistics network, said Fu. It takes about three days for clients to receive their orders in Malaysia due to local warehouses that also cut costs, she said. Earlier it took 10 days. She opened her hardware store in 2019.

Lazada is cooperating with Alibaba's courier arm Cainiao Network Technology and increasing its investment in Southeast Asian countries to set up local warehouses while serving Chinese merchants, according to the platform operator.

The Jinhua Maixi Tools team mainly focuses on the Philippines and Malaysia but the plan is to gradually expand to all the six countries where Lazada operates. "We would like to set up models in relatively mature markets, which will be good for the growth of the company and its staff, bringing more confidence," said Fu.

The entrepreneurs are benefitting from Lazada's improving technologies. After Alibaba bought its stake in 2016, Lazada has been adding artificial intelligence features such as smart translation software.

Moreover, Lazada has been building its live streaming channel called LazLive in the past two years. However, the development of live streaming e-commerce in Southeast Asia still lags behind that of China due to different consumer habits, said the firm. The company has established a base in Nanning to train live streamers for different target markets.

Li started Newbie Bike Store after she graduated from college. She chose the "world's capital of small commodities" as her base. Eastern China's Yiwu has a very nice entrepreneurial environment, which is very suitable for the development of cross-border e-commerce, said Li.

Yiwu is the only city in China that allows people to open an unlimited US dollar settlement account, aimed at promoting foreign trade, said Li. Moreover, the process is streamlined, she added. In other Chinese cities, an individual can handle settlements of no more than USD50,000 per year, which could be rather inconvenient for self-employed individuals, according to Li.

Eastern China's Zhejiang province proposed last month to allow college graduates to borrow from CNY100,000 to CNY500,000 (up to USD79,145) to start a business. If they fail, the government would first cover CNY100,000 of the loan, as well as 80 percent of the remainder.

Although college graduates would need to repay the loan, the pressure would be lower than that linked to bank loans, said Li. Evidently, the government is showing its support to entrepreneurs and offers rent subsidies and tax cuts, she added.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi