Government competition

Global Sources has been fulminating for years against what it sees as subsidised competition in Hong Kong from the Trade Development Council. We were interested to see this Xinhua piece then (thanks to Fon Tuinstra for pointing us in the right direction). It talks about the Chinese government's launch of the an E-business website China Suppliers with the memorable URL of www.china.cn. New subsidised competition it seems.

The piece notes that "During its trial operation over the past month, some 3.6 million companies registered and it published 40 million commercial messages". Supported by the Ministry of Commerce, it is said to target SMEs as does, of course, Alibaba.com. The report notes, rather sniffily, that "until recently, all major Chinese commercial websites were run by private firms". Something distasteful about that as far as those Xinhua boys are concerned.

It has to be said that government involvement in the industry sectors most served by Alibaba and Global Sources is limited at best and we imagine that neither in Hangzhou nor Hong Kong are they exactly quaking in their boots at this announcement.