E-commerce giant Alibaba Group has cut the ribbon on its new Australia and New Zealand headquarters at Collins Street in Melbourne.
The ANZ headquarters will be headed by Alibaba's Australian and New Zealand managing director Maggie Zhou.
The company's founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, opened Alibaba Group’s ANZ headquarters at a ceremony with over 350 business, industry and government attendees.
“With a local office and expert team, Alibaba Group will help Australian and New Zealand businesses share their world-famous products with billions of customers around the world,” Ma said.
“Whether a large company with existing links to China or a mum-and-dad run exporter operating out of a garage, Alibaba Group is here to make it easy to do business anywhere.”
Ma, who was mentored by an Australian family that helped him develop the English language skills needed to found Alibaba, said: “Australia will always have a special place in my heart and that’s why I am so pleased to come back to contribute to supporting Australian businesses to create opportunities and jobs in a country that has meant so much for me.”
More than 1300 Australian and 400 New Zealand brands now sell their goods on Tmall and Tmall Global, many of which entered China for the first time through these platforms.
During the 2016 Double 11 Global Shopping Festival, Australia was ranked the fourth highest selling country.
Zhou and her team have been operating in Australia for nine months, introducing new brands to Alibaba’s platforms and supporting the company's local clients.
“Longer term, Alibaba Group’s vision for the ANZ region is to build the entire operating infrastructure needed to enable local businesses to expand globally,” Zhou said.
“Alibaba Cloud launched its services and opened its data centre in late 2016 and there are now more than 1,000 bricks-and-mortar stores accepting Alipay across Australia and New Zealand.
“This is just the start, with further growth planned in the areas of cloud, payments, digital entertainment and logistics.”
Alibaba Group has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Australia Post to collaborate on developing the first Australian marketplace within the Lazada eCommerce Network in South-East Asia.
Australia Post storefronts will be established on all Lazada platforms with pilots in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to begin in 2017.
The signing of the memorandum of understanding was attended by Ma and Australia Post Chairman, John Stanhope.
“Australia Post is proud to continue its strong partnership with the Alibaba Group. Our enduring relationship with Alibaba will allow local Australian businesses to access the biggest online marketplace in the world,” Stanhope said.
