Chinese Alibaba seeks partnership with American ecommerce leaders

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has started talks with such companies as Google, eBay, Yahoo, and Microsoft in order to attract small companies in North America to export more goods to China. 

Ma did not reveal details of the discussions. However, he said he believed Alibaba would finally realize cooperative relationships with these companies.

The partnership is also expected to reduce the company's dependency on Chinese foreign trade companies. 

Currently, Alibaba has one million American users in the B2B market and the company plans to invest USD30 million in overseas marketing in 2009. 

John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, commenting on the issue said the company was willing to cooperate with Alibaba as both Alibaba’s Alipay and eBay's PayPal payment systems were operating well in China. The two payment platforms are expected to be integrated once the partnership takes an official form.