China’s Alibaba Group Registers Office in Russia

China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba reportedly opened a representative office in Russia.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba opened a representative office in Russia, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported Tuesday.

According to the newspaper, Alibaba’s Russian subsidiary, “Alibaba.com(ru)”, was registered on May 15. Business development director for AliExpress e-commerce website in Russia and the CIS Mark Zavadsky confirmed this information to Kommersant, adding that he has been appointed Director General of the new office while keeping his job at AliExpress.

According to Zavadsky, Alibaba Group opened a new company in Russia to “further expand our business… and to facilitate interaction with Russian government agencies.”

Founded in 1999, Alibaba group includes online shopping websites Taobao, Aliexpress and Tmall.The company’s revenue for 2014 was estimated at $8.4 billion, according to Google Finance.

AliExpress is the most visited e-commerce website in Russia, with an average of 15,6 million customers a month in the second half of 2014 as opposed to some 3,7 million Russian customers a month shopping on eBay and 1,7 million — on Amazon.com, according to Kommersant.