JD.com targets Saudi government partnership

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JD.com Inc is keen to partner with the Saudi government, a senior executive told Reuters, as China’s second-biggest e-commerce firm plans to enter the Middle East.

“We want to have a partnership with the Saudi government,” Winston Cheng, president of the firm’s international business, said in an interview on the sidelines of an investment conference. “Saudi’s Vision 2030 is an incredible opportunity.”

JD raised 1.78 billion US dollars in its IPO on the Nasdaq exchange in May 2014. /VCG Photo

Vision 2030 is Saudi Arabia’s economic reform plan aimed at boosting private-sector growth and developing non-oil industries.

JD.com’s comments came as Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, organizes a major business conference in Riyadh with technology singled out as a core area of investment.

8.3 billion US dollars' worth of online purchases were made by Saudi Arabian consumers in 2016, according to Payfort. /VCG Photo

In a sign of growing tech interest in the region, US e-commerce firm Amazon.com bought Middle Eastern online retailer Souq.com earlier this year in a deal described by Goldman Sachs as the biggest technology merger-and-acquisition deal in the Arab world.

Chinese e-commerce peer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s cloud-computing subsidiary Aliyun has also established a joint venture with Dubai’s state-owned Meraas Group.

JD.com logistic center in Langfang, Hebei Province, November 10, 2015. ‍/VCG Photo

“This (region) is the next new frontier,” said JD.com’s Cheng. “We’ll see how this conference turns out in terms of a partnership (with the Saudi Government) but we’re looking to move very fast.”

Source(s): Reuters