Chinese online retailer Alibaba Group opened its Australian and New Zealand headquarters in Melbourne on Saturday, its first expansion in the region as it seeks to tap growing global demand for products from the two countries. The group's billionaire founder Jack Ma, who spent time in Australia as a young man, said he hoped the e-commerce giant would help Australian and New Zealand businesses "share their world-famous products with billions of customers around the world".
There are more than 1,300 Australian and 400 New Zealand brands on Alibaba's Tmall and Tmall Global, the company said in a statement.
"Alibaba Group's vision for the ANZ region is to build the entire operating infrastructure needed to enable local businesses to expand globally," Maggie Zhou, the group's Australian and New Zealand Managing Director, said.
Further growth is planned in the areas of cloud computing, payments, digital entertainment and logistics, she said.
Alibaba also signed a memorandum of understanding with Australia Post aimed at streamlining logistics between Australia and China and developing the first Australian marketplace within Alibaba's Lazada eCommerce Network in Southeast Asia.
Published under arrangements with Reuters.
No content from Business Recorder shall be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication, or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Business Recorder shall not be responsible or held liable for any error of fact, opinion or recommendation and also for any loss, financial or otherwise, resulting from business or trade or speculation conducted, or investments made, on the basis of the information posted here. Nor shall Business Recorder be held liable for any actions taken in consequence." >Copyright Reuters, 2017