Alibaba has considered selling apartments on its platforms as well as facilitating the payment of deposits or settlements of apartments through its payment transactions service Alipay.
If executed, it could resolve the capital restriction problems faced by Chinese purchasers of Australian real estate, which have curtailed a lot of apartment sales in the past two years. The only competitors to an Alibaba-led platform in Australia, aside from the two dominant local platforms of realestate.com.au and domain.com.au, would be Australia-based Chinese platforms ACProperty.com.au and its sister site Sodichan.com and Juwai.com’s new platform with Chinese internet giant Tencent.
Alibaba would continue to support globalisation, not just in the trade of goods, but the trade of culture. The way to trounce anti-globalisation sentiments now was to go directly against it, Mr Ma said. “Globalisation is the future,” he said. “Everyone is concerned about trade wars. Worrying about it won’t solve it, but getting involved in it helps improve trade. When trade stops, war starts.”
