Alibaba Group said on Friday it is beta testing a new B2B (business-to-business) platform for international customers to be launched first in the United States by the end of the year.

Jack Ma, chief executive of Alibaba Group, spoke of the new platform -- Ali Express (http://wholesale.alibaba.com) -- at a business conference in Hangzhou.

Alibaba Group is the parent of China's top e-commerce website Alibaba.com, and also owns Taobao, China's largest online auction site, and Alipay, an online payment service provider.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

China Launch