Joint venture to develop China's e-commerce standard

Singapore-based bex.com will form a R&D company with two other Chinese companies to develop China's business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce software as a 'national standard'.

SINGAPORE, 13 July 2000 - An agreement has been formalized with bex.com and the Taiji-HuaNeng and Taiji-ZongTi corporations. bex.com will have a 49 percent share in the new company. It will also provide the technological foundation to build a B2B commerce engine to meet China's national needs.

The new company will also work with organizations in China to promote the use and development of B2B commerce in the country. These will include ARCIE (Architecture Research Centre for Information Engineering) and other subsidiaries and joint ventures of Taiji Company Corporation. and Hua Neng Group.

Mr. Yong Voon Fee, Chairman and CEO of bex.com, said, "China, with its huge base and market, sees a big potential to e-enable its businesses through B2B commerce. It wants to develop its own technology to meet its unique requirements, and to develop software which will become a national B2B standard."

"The new joint venture will work towards this end and aims to deliver a B2B software platform that will meet these requirements and to create a national B2B standard," Mr. Yong added.

bex.com is a global provider of e-commerce solutions focused on creating and operating e-Marketplaces around the world. bex.com's aim is to establish the world's largest business-to-business trading community in cyberspace.

Taiji-HuaNeng is a joint venture between Taiji Company Corporation, a company under the Ministry of Information Industry, and Hua Neng Group, a private electricity utility with a turnover of more than US$19 billion and more than 200 power plants. Taiji-ZongTi is a joint venture between Taiji Company Corporation and ARCIE (Architecture Research Centre for Information Engineering), a research centre commissioned by the Ministry of Information Industry with a focus on system design and IT education/training for the China e-commerce market.

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