The country’s largest e-commerce service will launch early next year in a partnership between WorldBridge International and Acleda Bank, the companies announced Wednesday following the signing of a memorandum of understanding last week.
Under the recently founded WorldBridgE Commerce company, the companies will launch the virtual My All In One Mall, or MAIO Mall, said Rami Sharaf, the CEO of World Bridge, at a press conference Wednesday in Phnom Penh.
Rithy Sear, World Bridge’s chairman, said the venture has more than 70 companies on board and will resemble Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.com.
Mr. Sear said the project would benefit from an e-commerce law that is due to be submitted to the National Assembly by the end of the year.
“I hope we will have e-commerce law next year and at that time we will have full power to implement e-commerce,” he said.
In Channy, CEO of Acleda Bank, which will handle the payments through credit and debit cards, said the growing familiarity that young generations have with using technology and the Internet will position the company to capitalize on a largely unexplored market.
“Is it new? Yes, it is the largest scale e-commerce because we never had something like this before,” he said.
“Look at the perception of young generations. They like electronics, they like technology and they like to explore new things. People would think ‘why do I need to go and physically shop, why not use modern technology.’”
