Alibaba.com Names Peter Sutherland, Former WTO Director-General, to Board of Advisors; Former World Trade Organization Director-General to Support Alibaba.com's Global Expansion

Business Wire, April 18, 2000

Business Editors

BEIJING, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 2000

Alibaba.com, the world's leading online business-to-business marketplace for global trade, announced today that Peter Sutherland, former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), will join Alibaba.com's Board of Advisors. The announcement marks a major milestone for Alibaba.com, the first global Internet brand to emerge from Greater China, with members in over 180 countries worldwide.

"Alibaba.com is helping businesses around the world realize the promise of the WTO in the Internet era," said Sutherland. "Alibaba.com is fundamentally changing the way the world's small and medium size enterprises conduct global trade. I am pleased to support Alibaba.com's global expansion as the company brings the benefits of Alibaba.com's online business-to-business marketplace to the world trading community."

"We are honored that Peter Sutherland has joined Alibaba.com's Board of Advisors," said Jack Ma, Alibaba.com founder and CEO. "Peter Sutherland played a leading role in the establishment of the WTO and helped demonstrate to the world the benefits of free and open global trade. Mr. Sutherland set an example for us all and Alibaba.com is working to reduce barriers to global trade by making the benefits of the Internet available to our members around the world."

Peter Sutherland joins SOFTBANK Corp.'s President and CEO Masayoshi Son on Alibaba.com's Board of Advisors. "Peter Sutherland and Masayoshi Son are two giants in their respective fields--global trade and the Internet," said Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba.com. "Their contributions to Alibaba.com's growth serves as a strong competitive advantage for both Alibaba.com and the members of our online global trading community."

Peter Sutherland played a leading role in the establishment of the World Trade Organization and served as the WTO's first Director-General. When Sutherland was first called to Geneva to head the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1993, many believed that the multilateral trading system faced collapse. Under Sutherland's leadership, the Uruguay Round negotiations were successfully completed and the WTO was established in January 1995. The organization now has more than 130 members worldwide with the stated objective of helping trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably.

Mr. Sutherland is currently Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International (1995 - current). He is also non executive Chairman of BP Amoco p.l.c. (1998 - current) and from 1997 was Chairman of The British Petroleum Company p.l.c.

Mr Sutherland currently serves on the Board of Directors of:

-- Investor AB

-- ABB Ltd

-- Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson

and is associated with the following organisations:

-- World Economic Forum, Foundation Board Member

-- Overseas Development Council, Chairman

-- The Council on Foreign Relations (USA), Director

-- The European Institute (USA), Director

-- Action Committee for Europe, member

-- The Conference Board, member of the Board of Trustees

Prior to his current position, Mr Sutherland served as:

-- Attorney General of Ireland (1981-1984)

-- EC Commissioner responsible for Competition Policy (1985-1989)

-- Chairman of Allied Irish Banks (1989-1993)

-- Director General of The World Trade Organisation, formerly

GATT (1993-1995)

About Alibaba.com

Alibaba.com is the world's leading online business-to-business marketplace and community for global trade and China's largest vertical trade communities. The company is focused on facilitating trade among small and medium sized enterprises through its web-based information and e-commerce platform. Alibaba.com's web properties have a combined membership of 180,000.

Alibaba.com is headquartered in Hong Kong with R&D and customer service operations in Mainland China and branch offices in Seoul, California and London.

Alibaba .com's institutional investors include SOFTBANK, Goldman Sachs, Transpac Capital, Fidelity Capital, Venture TDF, Pte Ltd of Singapore and Investor AB of Sweden.