Chinese e-commerce platforms bring job chances for unemployed Gaza youths

Beijing: Shorouq al-Sheikh Khalil, a young Palestinian lady from the Gaza Strip, could not hide her joy after receiving her first professional earnings from her work in e-commerce for one month and a half.

She said the earnings could help her pay the accumulated university fees that prevented her from completing her studying.

Al-Sheikh Khalil, a student of engineering, earned 1,000 U.S. dollars, while working for Chinese e-commerce platforms, specializing in electronic marketing, China Economic Net reported..

“The Chinese electronic marketing websites are lifelines for young people around the world, not just in Palestine. They help us to get money through online trade, with no need to face the hassle with local businesspeople,” she said.

E-commerce contributes greatly to solving the problems of youths and represents a promising industry, especially for those who desperately need job opportunities in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has imposed movement restrictions, according to al-Sheikh Khalil.

The young lady operates e-commerce through the three Chinese platforms: Ali Express, JD.com and COSCO. She said all the three have good reputation among customers worldwide.

She added that most of her customers are from the United States and some Gulf countries.

Huda Mohammed, a 27-year-old mother of four from Gaza city, joined e-commerce after several years in search for a job since her graduation from a university in 2014.

“E-commerce has contributed mainly to changing my life for the better. I’m a mother with children and need to spend more time at home with my children,” she said.

She said this type of trade is a marketing process for products offered by owners of international and local brands through her account on Ali Express platform, adding that she earns a profit rate between 10-30 percent for each operation.

“China is a productive country and exports its products to worldwide, and Chinese companies allow young people around the world to share their profits, based on the principle of mutual benefit,” the young lady said.

Al-Sheikh Khalil and Huda Mohammedboth received extensive training courses to learn ways to do e-commerce.

They received these training courses at E-Top Academy in the Gaza Strip, which helps young people start their e-commerce business.

“Young people in the Gaza Strip, especially university graduates, are suffering from high unemployment and the lack of appropriate job opportunities for them,” Bilal al-Herakli, one of the founders of the academy, said.

Al-Herakli, who has been working in e-commerce for nearly two years, said that e-commerce has a global position and a guaranteed means for the unemployed to obtain a job from a distance, adding that this pushed him with two of his friends to create the first e-commerce academy in Gaza.

While browsing the Ali Express platform, the young man said that almost all major e-commerce websites are affiliated with companies in China. “On such platforms, it is easy to deal with the suppliers and the clients around the world,” he said.

Currently, nearly 1,000 students in Gaza were trained on how to deal with e-commerce in al-Herakli’s academy.

Young people in the Gaza Strip are suffering from high unemployment as a result of the Israeli blockade on the seaside enclave since the Islamic Hamas movement seized control of it in 2007.

The blockade has had a negative impact on the social, economic and political aspects of life, pushing hundreds and thousands of Gaza’s two million population deeper into poverty.

According to official data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate among youth in the Palestinian territories reached 67 percent.