China's leading e-commerce firm JD.com today announced that it has secured investment worth USD 550 million from American internet giant Google as part of a new strategic partnership between the two leading tech companies.
Google, which still remains inaccessible in China due to an official ban, will obtain around 27.1 million newly-issued 'Class A' ordinary shares of JD.com, a rival to Alibaba, at an issue price of USD 20.29 per share, the firm said.
The two companies will jointly explore retail business in regions around the world, including Southeast Asia, the United States and Europe, according to the statement by JD.
The cooperation will combine the advantages of JD.com in supply chain and logistics and Google's technology strengths, it said.
JD.com also plans to make a selection of products available for sale through Google Shopping in multiple regions, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
"This partnership with Google opens up a broad range of possibilities to offer a superior retail experience to consumers around the world," JD.com's Chief Strategy Officer Jianwen Liao said.
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"This marks an important step in the process of modernising global retail," he said.
Google's investment came amid the ongoing trade spat between US and China. Besides demanding reduction of USD 375 billon trade deficit, US President Donald Trump is pressuring Beijing to open up more for US investments.
JD.com, a rival to Alibaba is also a leading e-commerce platform in China, is celebrating its annual online shopping festival, with orders worth 127.5 billion yuan (USD 19.83 billion) made from June 1 until today.
Google, which made a dent in China earlier, was shut down in 2010 following a showdown with Chinese government over censor policies. Since then Google, Gmail, Youtube and its other products stayed banned in the world's second largest economy.
Google moved subsequently shifted its operations to Hong Kong.
In its absence, Chinese firms like Tencent and Alibaba Baidu and JD.com emerged most powerful players in China and abroad.
Google and its products can be accessed in China through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) over which Beijing has stepped up crackdown in recent times.
Besides Google, a number of global social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter remained banned in China over fears that their presence would open-up to millions of China's social media users marginalising the official media.
Google's CEO Sunder Pichai made a rare visit to China in December last year and urged Beijing to lift the ban on the popular search engine, saying that it is already helping Chinese firms to gain global access.
"A lot of work Google does is to help Chinese companies," he told a China state-run global internet conference at Chinese city of Wuzen.
"Many small and medium-sized businesses in China take advantage of Google to get their products to many other countries outside of China," he told the meeting.