Dubai: The Middle East is quickly developing into an e-commerce powered society. With the introduction of the Tejari portal in 2000, the wake-up call for internet-based business in the region arrived.
Tejari is a business-to-business e-marketplace that allows companies to buy and sell goods and services online. It has been operating for ten years with major accounts in the region. It offers comprehensive e-procurement and e-tendering solutions.
The aim of Tejari is to help customers get the most out of e-commerce.
Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of Foreign Trade and founder of Tejari, praised the portal when it was established as a unit of Dubai World.
"It is meant to empower our customers to do business with an undreamed of number of new clients and to become the leading e-commerce provider in emerging markets the world over."
Under Shaikha Lubna's leadership, Tejari has won awards for the World Summit for Information Society's "Best e-Content Provider in e-business" in Geneva and the UAE Super Brands Council "Super Brand of 2003".
Developing economies
In recent years, electronic business worldwide crossed the $1 trillion (Dh3.67 trillion) mark and emerging markets are now playing a vital role in the segment. Emerging markets are making up about a quarter of e-commerce sales, and by 2030, that figure is forecast to reach 50 per cent, according to Tejari. There has been a major shift towards developing economies and Tejari is ensuring that it becomes the online bridge for the next generation of global business opportunities, the company said.
Tejari's activities span the Middle East as well as Africa and Asia. There are plans to penetrate further into Asia, Africa, the Far East, Russia, China and Latin America to increase the portfolio of members in emerging markets and become known as the favoured brand of B2B e-commerce.
Currently, the e-commerce portal says it is serving more than 200,000 potential business partners. However, Tejari's office manager Ghada Al Gammal did not respond to questions asked by Gulf News about the current number of customers and traders and the amount of daily transactions.
Tejari's clients in the UAE include Dubai Government, the Al Futtaim Group, Emirates and Etihad. In Kuwait, Tejari serves the National Bank of Kuwait and Wataniya Telecom, among others. In Oman, Bank Muscat, Omantel, Oman Air and others are using Tejari. In Pakistan, the regional Coca Cola subsidiary, Karachi Marriott, Orient Petroleum and Unilever are Tejari customers, and in China a couple of major industry groups are trading via the UAE-based e-commerce portal.
As of yesterday, the Tejari portal showed 197,674 members conducting 382 tenders or auctions, dealing in a range of 39,502 products.
