Alibaba to Invest US$282 Million in Tmall.com

Posted by Joachim Bartels | Oct 22, 2011 | Alibaba, China, E-Commerce | 0 |

Hangzhou, 17^th October: The Alibaba Group announced its latest plan to invest RMB 1.8 billion (US$282 million) to its B2C subsidiary, Tmall.com (Taobao Mall), in an effort to assist small- and medium-sized enterprises. The announcement was made after China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) reportedly stepped in to mediate an online protest staged on Taobao Mall by small business owners after learning Alibaba’s plan to increase membership fees by a minimum of five-fold earlier this month.

Amongst a series of measures, Alibaba outlined that RMB 1 billion (US$157 million) of the investment will be used to support half of the supplier’s deposit for the company’s fraud protection fund. Also, loan guarantees worth RMB 500 million (US$78 million) will be provided to selected small businesses, while the remaining RMB 300 million (US$47 million) will be used on marketing-related services.

Source: Business Strategies Group Hong Kong

About The Author

Joachim Bartels

Joachim C Bartels is a co-founder, director, head of information resources and Editor-in-Chief of BIIA. In his capacity as Editor-in-Chief he is responsible for the selection of relevant information content concerning industry insights, trends, technological developments, standards and policies impacting BIIA members in particular and the business information industry in general.

The BIIA library is approaching 10,000 news items and best demonstrated practices. BIIA members receive regular news alerts on key developments in the industry and the regulatory environment. The BIIA readership is widespread: between 4 to 5 thousand unique visitors access BIIA.com per month.