China's e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Thursday that it will invest 300 million yuan (US$43.79 million) in its online search and community subsidiary Yahoo Koubei next year to fend off slowdowns in global markets.

It is the second investment this year that Alibaba has announced to boost domestic demands.

Alibaba said it will establish three large online local service communities on Yahoo Koubei next year for consumers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and plans to revamp its organization and services to attract more users.

The measure will help unlock domestic consumer spending and help its clients get more orders.

Impacted by the global financial crisis, many of Alibaba's exporter clients have been forced to shut down their businesses during the past few months. In the third quarter of this year, Alibaba's revenue increased by 37 percent, the lowest since its IPO last year.

The severe environment in overseas markets have forced Alibaba to explore domestic demand more actively. In October, the company announced that it will invest 5 billion yuan in its C2C platform Taobao.com over the next five years.

Connecting small- and medium-sized enterprises and consumers, Yahoo Koubei is one of China's largest online communities for lifestyle information. It was merged in June by China Yahoo! and Koubei.com, both of which were affiliated with Alibaba.

(China Daily December 12, 2008)