Alibaba Group reportedly plans to invest in a South Korean online retail platform, its first such investment, as it seeks to bolster its position as a leader in global e-commerce while accelerate cross-border digital trade between China and South Korea.
The move shows the growing clout of Chinese e-commerce platforms thanks to their competitiveness, which will help boost cross-border import and export and contribute to regional economic growth, experts said.
According to the Korean Economic Daily, Alibaba is in talks with Ably Co, the operator of South Korea's No.1 women's clothes app Ably, to invest 100 billion won ($72.4 million) for about a 5-percent stake, aiming to open a way to expand its sales in South Korea and other markets by combining the fashion of Dongdaemun (South Korea's largest fashion wholesale marketplace) with made-in-China products.
