The foreign trade talent gap exceeds 6 million. Alibaba International Station and Tsinghua University jointly released talent certification standards

On May 18, Alibaba International Station and Tsinghua University jointly released the "Cross-border E-commerce B2B Data Operation Professional Skills Standards". It is understood that this is the first international cross-border e-commerce talent standard in China certified by the Ministry of Education.

Cross-border e-commerce is growing strongly. The General Administration of Customs announced that in the first four months of this year , China's total exports were 6.32 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.8%; of which private enterprises exported 3.53 trillion yuan, an increase of 45%, accounting for 55.9% of the total export value. Data from Alibaba International Station, a cross-border e-commerce B2B platform, showed that in the first four months of this year, the growth of the platform's transaction volume, number of orders, and number of sellers exceeded three digits.

According to a survey conducted by Tsinghua University's National Service Outsourcing Human Resources Research Institute, more than 70% of domestic cross-border e-commerce companies believe that the biggest bottleneck restricting their development is the lack of professional talent. Alibaba International Station predicts that there is a shortage of more than 6 million professional cross-border e-commerce talents in China; except for the southeastern coastal areas, small and medium-sized enterprises in the central and western regions are particularly short of talent.

"The industry has always lacked professional talent certification standards." Yao Yuan, head of the talent project at Alibaba International Station, said that in early 2020, the Ministry of Education confirmed Alibaba International Station as the exclusive training and evaluation organization for cross-border e-commerce B2B data operations talents; the International Station joined forces with expert groups from Tsinghua University and other universities and leading industry associations to preliminarily design a cross-border e-commerce talent training system and stratification standards.

(Photo: Cross-border e-commerce B2B data operation professional skill level certificate examination site)

Data shows that more than 10,000 college graduates have obtained cross-border e-commerce talent certificates through the above-mentioned programs; more than 50% of graduates have their first order after employment exceeding US$10,000. Qiu Hengjun, a 2018 student at Nanjing Sanjiang College, even founded a foreign trade company directly after taking the cross-border e-commerce training course jointly organized by Alibaba International Station and the school.

Zhejiang Finance Vocational College's International Trade Practice major also jointly established the "Alibaba Digital Trade Industry College" and the first Alibaba Digital Trade Class with the International Station . The pass rate of the cross-border e-commerce talent certification exam in this class reached 96%. By comparison, it was found that the average monthly salary of students who had not yet obtained the certificate during the internship period was 3,633 yuan; the average monthly salary of those who obtained the certificate was 5,177 yuan, 1,544 yuan higher.

At the "Belt and Road" Digital Trade Talent Education Dialogue Forum hosted by Tsinghua University on the 18th, Zhang Kuo, vice president of Alibaba Group and general manager of the International Station, told reporters that the International Station has cooperated with 513 universities across the country and has trained more than 350,000 cross-border e-commerce professionals; in the future, it will also promote the construction of an overseas talent pool.

According to Alibaba International Station, the platform transaction volume of the core buyer countries along the “Belt and Road” initiative increased rapidly in the first quarter of this year, with Vietnam increasing by 160% year-on-year, Malaysia by 140%, Thailand by 145%, and the Philippines by 165%.

Alibaba International Station