Alibaba plans to invest more than US$1 billion in Turkey to build a logistics hub and data center

According to the Turkish “Morning News” report on January 8, Alibaba Group President Michael Evans (Michael Evans) said during his visit to the Turkish Media Group (Turkuvaz Media Group) that Alibaba plans to invest more than 1 billion US dollars in Turkey, including plans to Establish a logistics hub at Istanbul Airport and build Turkey’s largest data center covering an area of ​​200,000 square meters near Ankara, the capital of Turkey.

“We thought about investing in Europe and the Middle East, but we needed a very strong production base. When doing research, I saw that this place has a lot of production capacity. I believe in Turkey.” Evans mentioned Alibaba Investment Holdings Trendyol, a Turkish e-commerce platform, “We chose Trendyol because its technology has been developed and has great potential.” He explained that among Trendyol’s 300,000 sellers, 97% are small and medium-sized enterprises.

On the issue of whether Trendyol will go public, Evans said that “going public has advantages and disadvantages”. He believes that becoming a listed company is beneficial, but Trendyol management should make a decision on this. Çağlayan Çetin, President of Trendyol Group, said that there are no plans in the short term.

Alibaba acquired Trendyol in 2018. In April 2021, Alibaba will increase its investment in Trendyol by US$350 million, increasing its shareholding ratio to 86.5%.