alibaba buys stake in singapore post

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has bought up a 10% stake in Singapore's national postal service provider SingPost for S$312.5m ($249m; £148m).

The move comes as Alibaba - one of the world's biggest e-commerce firms - has been looking to expand its operations in the Asia-Pacific region.

The two firms said they will also discuss setting up an international e-commerce logistics business.

Asia-Pacific is one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets.

According to some estimates, e-commerce sales in the region are expected to grow to more than $1 trillion by 2020.

"E-commerce logistics is the key enabler to capture the growth in e-commerce in Asia," Wolfgang Baier, chief executive of SingPost said in a statement.

"With the tremendous e-commerce opportunity, the funds from this investment provide SingPost with financial flexibility and enable us to significantly scale up our e-commerce logistics business and build new capabilities as we are poised for growth in the region."