Alibaba refutes Ermias Amelga’s ecommerce partnership claims

 

 

Alibaba Group, China's internet behemoth, repeated that it had no collaboration agreements with Ermias Amelga, despite the latter's assertion that he was doing business with the e-commerce behemoth and was in the midst of implementing a project with it. The corporation said in a statement to The Reporter that it has no plans to start an e-commerce operation in Ethiopia.

 

Ermias Amelga, an Ethiopian entrepreneur and business personality, announced in January 2022 that he is working on an e-commerce platform with the Alibaba Group. Ermias also informed The Reporter that the e-commerce platform will be ready in five to six months, which would be right now or in the next months.

 

However, when the story was widely shared and published on The Reporter, the Group sent a response to The Reporter on March 22, 2022, refuting Ermias' assertion.

 

"We have no e-commerce agreements in Ethiopia," Luica Mak, Alibaba's head of International Corporate Communications, told The Reporter over the phone.

 

Further, Maja Hauke, Alibaba's International Corporate Affairs director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), confirmed to The Reporter that Alibaba has no immediate intentions to open an e-commerce operation in Ethiopia.

The Reporter contacted Ermias to check the situation after receiving claims from Alibaba via email and phone discussions. In an official letter, the Reporter asked Ermias to show evidence that he had formed or negotiated an agreement with Alibaba.

 

The deal was signed with Alibaba's Ethiopia officials, according to Ermias. However, the "representatives'" contacts that Ermias gave to The Reporter did not confirm or deny the deal.

 

Alibaba's regional EMEA offices and data centers, according to Luica, are solely in Dubai, Frankfurt, and London.

 

Ermias claimed the arrangement was with Whale Cloud Technology Ltd, not Alibaba, because "Alibaba's Ethiopia officials" failed to reply to The Reporter's enquiries.

 

On April 14, 2022, Ermias gave the writer a phone message that stated, "Whale Cloud is an Alibaba-owned corporation through which it conducts its worldwide activities."

 

Whale Cloud was founded in China in 1993 and is one of the world's major telecom software developers. According to its website, Whale Cloud was once ZTE's telecom division. Despite the fact that Whale Cloud and Alibaba Cloud formed a "strategic collaboration" in 2018, Luica stated Whale Cloud initiates deals on its own, not as Alibaba.

 

Ermias, on the other hand, failed to demonstrate and deliver the agreement contract between his firm and Whale Cloud. He soon went to exhibit a presentation slide on his own computer, with logos of Alibaba Group and Whale Cloud located on the opening pages of the PowerPoint slides, after promising to disclose the agreement to the authors.

 

Ermias also left out details on when, where, and with whom the deal was signed. He also refused to allow The Reporter more than three minutes to explain the situation.

 

On the same queries posed by The Reporter's investigative team, Ermias supplied different and contradictory information at various times.

 

“We definitely have never signed or seen such a document. Anybody can place Alibaba’s logo on any document,” said Luica, during a phone conversation with The Reporter.