Alibaba goes “Down Under” with regional office and new partnerships. Chinese internet services conglomerate Alibaba Group inaugurated operations at a new office in Melbourne, which will serve as the group’s regional headquarters for Australia and New Zealand. The office not only supports the onboarding of local businesses looking to reach Chinese markets via Alibaba’s Tmall and Tmall Global B2C marketplaces, but also other Alibaba services, including logistics, cloud-computing and online payment processing.

Separately, Australia Post signed an MoU to collaborate with Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce retailer, Lazada (which last year was acquired by Alibaba’s logistics affiliate Cainiao) to facilitate the flow of parcels moving between the two regions. Cainiao and Australia Post will also collaborate through improved data integration to launch a co-branded cross-border express channel for Australian parcels destined for China.