Alibaba.com expands to India

David Wei, CEO at Alibaba, said on Monday that Alibaba.com Ltd. is weighing to create a joint venture in India to provide business-to-business e-commerce services. The new company will be similar to the joint venture Alibaba.com set up with Japanese mobile-phone and Internet company Softbank Corp. The Japanese joint venture caters to local small and midsize businesses.

"The most likely partners to be involved in the Indian JV are those that we are now cooperating with," he said.

Besides, Mr. Wei said that an assistance program launched in 2007 by parent Alibaba Group, which also operates a retail and trading site Taobao.com, has helped about 1,400 small and midsize enterprises in China's Zhejiang province obtain loans in excess of 2.6 billion yuan, or about $381 million, as of June 30.

Alibaba.com said that the ratio on what the company calls "Ali-loans" was 1.08% as of June, while the nonperforming-loan ratio among commercial banks in China for the same period was 1.77%. In addition, it said that the Ali-loan program aims to facilitate a total of 6 billion yuan in loans by the end of 2009, with each individual loan being capped at 2 million yuan.

Alibaba.com, the Hong Kong-listed business-to-business unit of Alibaba Group, was founded in 1999 by a former English teacher Jack Ma.