(Yicai Global) Feb. 5 -- Chinese e-commerce stalwart Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s cross-border marketplace for inbound sales has set up a sourcing center in the United Kingdom to help British brands make their way into the world's second largest economy.

Tmall Global announced the news on Feb. 1, during UK Prime Minister Theresa May's state visit to China. The platform allows foreign brands and merchants to sell directly in China and will help thousands of small British companies make large-scale growth via Alibaba's New Retail strategy.

New Retail has become a key term in China's progressing consumer economy as of late. Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma coined the term in 2016, and describes it as "the integration of online, offline, logistics and data across a single value chain."

May met and praised Jack Ma during the Davos Forum in Switzerland late last month, and expressed hope that UK companies would be able to tap the Chinese market.

The UK was the seventh biggest importer on Tmall last year, and there are now 800 brands from the country on the platform. The broad range of UK products available includes those from well-known brands Burberry, Unilever and 2013/14 Premier League winners Manchester City, as well as smaller brands like leather goods maker Cambridge Satchel and hairbrush label Tangle Angel.

Tmall Global's business development team and Alibaba's European offices joined forces last month in a bid to attract investment from small-to-medium-sized enterprises in European countries, primarily the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, as it looks to expand its presence in the continent.