Chinese B2B e-commerce group Alibaba has signed a cooperative agreement with Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone on its new western base project, making Chengdu the first stop for the group's domestic distribution apart from its Zhejiang headquarters.

Under the agreement, Alibaba will invest USD100 million to build its western base in Chengdu and the business range of this new project will cover relevant services of Alibaba Group's subsidiaries, including Alibaba.com, Taobao.com, Alisoft, Alipay, and Yahoo Koubei. In addition, the base will have various functions such as research, development, background operation, maintenance, disaster recovery, and training.

At the same time, Alisoft, Alibaba's software subsidiary, signed an agreement with Chengdu to open a new operating service center in the city. According to Nong Jiaqing, vice president of Alisoft, the investments in the operating service center will not be included in Alibaba's USD100 million investments in Chengdu. The new project is expected to start operation in July 2009.

In return, the municipal government of Chengdu gives full support to Alisoft's new project and local small and medium-sized enterprises which use Alisoft's software will gain a subsidy of CNY1,500.