According to media reports, Alibaba Group plans to invest $1.1 billion (approximately RMB 7.9 billion) in South Korea over the next three years to establish a logistics center and expand its business.
According to a business strategy document cited by Yonhap News Agency, Alibaba plans to invest $1.1 billion (approximately 7.9 billion yuan) in South Korea over the next three years.
As part of its investment plan, Alibaba plans to spend $200 million (approximately 1.438 billion yuan) this year to build a logistics center, and also plans to spend $100 million to help South Korean small and medium-sized enterprises sell products overseas.
In addition, Alibaba plans to invest approximately 100 billion Korean won (approximately RMB 546 million) to help strengthen consumer protection in South Korea.
Alibaba officials responded to the media, "We cannot disclose specific plans at the moment, but we will continue to expand our investment in South Korea. In the long run, we will cooperate with local sellers to protect consumers and help small and medium-sized enterprises enter the global market."
According to government data, the number of AliExpress global users in South Korea has more than doubled from 3.36 million in 2022 to 7.18 million in February of this year.
South Korea is increasing regulatory efforts
At present, South Korean regulatory agencies are increasing their supervision of some Chinese online shopping platforms.
Recently, South Korean data protection regulatory authorities are investigating the processing of consumer data by overseas e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress and Pinduoduo's Temu.
Earlier this month, South Korean antitrust regulatory authorities conducted an on-site inspection of Global AliExpress, suspecting that the e-commerce platform violated consumer protection obligations.
Last year, the Consumer Union of Korea received a significant increase in the number of complaints against AliExpress worldwide, from 93 in the previous year to 465. These complaints involve issues such as delivery errors, cancellation of orders, and lack of delivery information.