Image: Phuong Uyen Vo Hoang via Unsplash
Welcome to China Business News, NEO’s weekly roundup of top business developments as reported by news outlets in China and the region.
This week’s highlights:
- Alibaba Group announced that its board of directors has authorized Group management to submit an application for a primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). Upon completion of the review process by the HKEX, Alibaba will have a dual primary listing on the HKEX Main Board and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This move will enable a broader group of investors, especially participants in Alibaba’s digital ecosystem in China and across the Asia-Pacific, to share in Alibaba’s growth, according to Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang. For Chinese stocks, “dual listing” is no longer an unfamiliar term, and the “backup” of Chinese stocks in Hong Kong is also nothing new. A number of Chinese companies – including Zhihu, Shell, Xiaopeng and Ideal Automobile – have already secured dual primary listings in the U.S. and Hong Kong. In March of this year, online entertainment platform Bilibili filed an application with the HKEX for conversion to primary listing in Hong Kong, which is expected to take effect in October. (Chinaventure)
- Alibaba’s FY 2022 annual report has revealed important adjustments to the partnership structure, commercial cooperation, data sharing and other agreements between Alibaba and Ant Group. The latest partner list shows that, in addition to several members who previously announced their retirement, seven members of Ant Group’s management have left the Alibaba Group partner team in the past fiscal year. Alibaba has recently amended its Partnership Agreement, according to which its partners will now be solely Alibaba Group’s individuals. Sources close to Ant Group said the move aims to further enhance the transparency and effectiveness of corporate governance, strengthen the division between Ant Group and major shareholder Alibaba, and further ensure independent decision-making by both boards and business management. (Caixin)
- Tencent’s President of Cloud and Intelligent Industry Group recently discussed the company’s open source practice and ideas in the era of industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). As a tech company, Tencent strongly believes in the future of open source, according to Dowson Tong. By serving as an accelerator of technological innovation, open source not only represents an open and shared software form, but is also becoming a new tool for production and collaboration in the IIoT era. Tencent has been firmly embracing open source for more than a decade, Tong said. In the field of core technologies, Tencent is an important technical contributor to OpenCloudOS, a full-link localised open source operating system. Regarding open source ecology, Tencent is one of the initiators of the Open Atom Open Source Foundation, which includes two open-source projects. Tencent Cloud is also actively building technical standards through open source, helping to develop the specification and governance of open source projects as well as promoting home-grown research technologies. (Central People’s Radio)
