Alibaba Plans $2B Investment In Turkey: Report

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA reportedly plans a $2 billion investment in Turkey after a meeting between the Chief Executive Officer, Michael Evans, and Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The company has already invested about $1.4 billion in Turkey through its e-commerce marketplace, Trendyol, according to Bloomberg.

He added that Alibaba has a lot of confidence that Turkey has the possibility to become one of the leading e-export countries.

The report noted Trendyol reached a valuation of $16.5 billion in 2021, with investors including Softbank Group Corp SFTBY, General Atlantic, Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi sovereign fund ADQ. Alibaba holds 76.1% stake in Trendyol.

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Evans reportedly plans for a data center, a logistics center in Ankara and an export operations center at Istanbul Airport.

Total e-commerce volume in Turkey swelled 109% in 2022. A fifth of Turkey’s total shopping was through online last year.

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Price Action: BABA shares are trading lower by 0.91% at $86.28 in premarket on the last check Monday.