Alibaba Launches China-Russia Flights in Cooperation with Russian Post

Alibaba Group‘s logistics operator and Russia’s postal service, Pochta Rossii, have launched their first direct China-Russia cargo flights to deliver AliExpress goods purchased online by Russians, AliExpress Russia said on Thursday, according to Reuters.

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 Rossii and cargo charter airline 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 to 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.

As the head of the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, said the partnership will provide access to e-commerce services for more than half of the population of Russia, while suppliers from the country obtain access to one and a half billion users in China and around the world.