Alibaba Group announced no June 5th that the group establishes a joint investment company with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the Russian social media and IT group Mail.Ru, and the Russian telecommunications operator MegaFon.
The announcement stated that the new company is named AliExpress Russia. The company will take over the cross-border e-commerce services currently provided in Russia by AliExpress. One important aspect of the organization is the strategic cooperation between Alibaba and Mail.Ru in the development of new social e-commerce products.
Data shows that AliExpress, established in 2010, already has a record-breaking 150 million overseas buyers. Russia is currently the largest and most important market for AliExpress.
Zhang Yong, the CEO of Alibaba Group, stated: "This cooperation will help AliExpress Russia to speed up the development of a digital economy in Russia and other Russian-speaking regions." RDIF and Alibaba each invested 100 million USD in the joint investment company. The RDIF released a statement that they consider to purchase from Alibaba 194 million USD worth of shares in the joint investment company.
Source: news.qq.com