Accordingly, with the investment, Alibaba is seen to bedeepening its exposure in the Indonesian market by tapping one of the country'sbiggest conglomerates and its vast ecosystem spanning communications andtechnology, paper, agribusiness, financial services and infrastructure.
Alibaba's proposed investment in the Sinar Mas ecosystemfollows the latter's recent entry as a shareholder into fintech player Dana --a joint venture between Indonesian conglomerate Emtek and Alibaba's AntFinancial.
It is expected that Smartfren and Alibaba will soon announcethe agreement.
Smartfren swung to profit in the first three months of 2022on the back of higher revenue. It recorded profits of 24.98 billion Rp (1.7million USD) between January and March, compared to losses of 396.83 billion Rp in the same period last year.
Alibaba already has a presence in Indonesia via PT AkulakuSilvrr Indonesia, part of the e-commerce and digital finance Akulaku Group.Akulaku controls 25.66% of Indonesian digital lender Bank Neo Commerce./.
VNA