KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 (Xinhua) -- China's e-commerce giant Alibaba has partnered with Malaysian web hosting and cloud service provider Exabytes Network on Thursday to accelerate exports from small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into the Chinese market.

Speaking at the launch, Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the partnership, designed to facilitate exports from Malaysia's northern sector namely the states of Kedah, Penang, Perak and Perlis, will help SMEs in those states tap into millions of buyers worldwide and discover new business opportunities.

He explained that SMEs, which contributed 37 percent of Malaysia's gross domestic product in 2017 and employed two-thirds of the country's workforce need to keep up with the latest technological developments to stay competitive.

"I am hopeful that this partnership between Alibaba.com and Exabytes will further encourage local SMEs to digitize their businesses and achieve bigger goals by making their business successful beyond Malaysia."

"Malaysia's digital economy, with e-commerce being one of the key components, is at its fast-growing phase. Against this backdrop, I strongly encourage SMEs and local businesses to innovate and make the most of the benefits available out there," he said.

Alibaba country manager for Malaysia Joey Zhu who was also present at the launching ceremony said the partnership would also benefit business by making digitization of their businesses easier.

"It not only helps them tap into newer markets, but also take away some of the pain of digitizing their business. Our partnership with Exabytes will help us better serve the needs of local SMEs and businesses as they accelerate and excel in cross border e-commerce.

"Together with Exabytes, we will be organizing a series of educational seminars, workshops and sessions in this region to empower and enable more local SMEs and businesses to benefit from Alibaba's ecosystem," he said.

Alibaba rolled out its first overseas eHub in Malaysia under the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) initiative in 2017, emphasizing to facilitate exports for Malaysian SMEs and create the infrastructure to support global trade with services encompassing e-commerce, logistics, cloud computing, mobile payment and talent training.