Alibaba antitrust probe: home province vows to bring platform economy into ‘new stage’
- The Zhejiang Communist Party pledged on Monday to bring progress to the platform economy, answering a call from Beijing to tame capital expansion
- Zhejiang is China’s platform economy and fintech leader thanks in part to the presence of Alibaba and Ant Group
The Communist Party leadership of Zhejiang province, the home base of Alibaba Group Holding, has pledged to use Beijing’s antitrust probe as a chance to usher the platform economy and internet finance into a new stage of development, promising better development of the internet economy.
The Zhejiang Communist Party held a special meeting on Monday to discuss how to implement the central Chinese leadership’s order to break up monopolies and tame capital expansion while “promoting healthy and regulated development of the platform economy”, according to a statement published on the provincial government website on Monday.
The meeting, chaired by Zhejiang party secretary Yuan Jiajun, took place as Alibaba shares suffered another day of plunging prices in Hong Kong, falling 8 per cent on Monday.
The sell-offs continued despite the company’s announcement that it increased its stock buy-back plan to US$10 billion from US$6 billion, after it lost 7 per cent in the previous trading day in the city.
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China kicks off antitrust probes into Alibaba over alleged monopolistic practices
Its price in New York tumbled 13 per cent on December 24, after Beijing launched its antitrust probe. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.