MOSCOW, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Alibaba Group's logistics
operator and Russia's Pochta postal service have launched their
first direct China-Russia cargo flights to deliver AliExpress
goods purchased online by Russians, AliExpress Russia said on
Thursday.
The move, which AliExpress Russia hopes will help it cut the
time it takes to deliver orders from China to Russia to 10 days,
comes with Russia's rapidly growing e-commerce market producing
an annual turnover of more than $14 billion.
Alibaba's Cainiao logistics operator is renting 7 cargo
planes from Pochta Russia and Aviastar-Tu to fly to the cities
of Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk on a daily basis.
In October, Russian internet company Mail.Ru said
it had agreed a joint venture with Alipay, the mobile payments
arm of Alibaba Group, along with the Russian Direct Investment
Fund (RDIF) and two other Russian partners.
(Reporting by Anton Zverev, Nadezhda Tsydenova; writing by Tom
Balmforth; editing by Jason Neely)