KUALA LUMPUR: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd recently expanded its operations in Malaysia by opening a new logistics hub. This move signals even more investment by Chinese companies in infrastructure throughout the Asian country of Malaysia.
The total amount of the investment by Alibaba is unknown yet.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma worked in conjunction with the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to help establish what they are calling an integral part of their digital free trade zone. The “hub” is projected to launch within the next 3 years and be fully operational by the beginning of 2020.
The hub is designed to help streamline the process of shipping, warehousing, and fulfillment of products through customs in Malaysia and throughout the international market. Essentially making the process of importing and exporting of Asian products more competitive on a global scale.
This expansion is just another part of the Ma’s goal of lower the amount of barriers to free trade between Chinese companies and the rest of the world.
In conjunction with this new logistics hub is an agreement to work on collaboration between Malaysian businesses and companies either owned or in connection with Alibaba. These companies include organizations like Alipay which is a direct competitor to companies like Paypal Inc and Apple Inc.
Other companies are also involved on a smaller scale, such as Catcha Group which operates the direct competitor to Netflix in SE Asia. The investment by Catcha is estimated at nearly 300 million dollars.
