South Korea Signs Agreement With AliExpress on Product Safety

13 May

South Korea's government has signed an agreement with Alibaba's, AliExpress, and PDD Holdings' to promote product safety. The agreement comes after heightened regulatory scrutiny of these Chinese e-commerce platforms, which have significantly expanded their user base in South Korea. Safety inspections on products sold on these platforms detected harmful substances, threatening consumer safety. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said that the agreement was necessary due to the increased scrutiny on consumer safety related to overseas online platforms.

Temu co-founder Qin Sun stated that the government will continue to strengthen monitoring to block the distribution of harmful products, such as overseas recall products, in Korea. AliExpress Korea's CEO Ray Zhang stated that the platform had stepped up consumer protection policies since March, including a customer hotline without language barriers and faster returns.

Under the agreement, the government will provide data and check whether harmful products have been blocked from sale by the platforms. The KFTC is also pursuing the passing of a Consumer Safety Act that will assign legally binding responsibility to platforms. This is the first time Temu has signed such a voluntary agreement anywhere in the world, although AliExpress has a history of signing such agreements with the European Union and Australia.

Technical Outlook
BABA stock is up 5.5% on Monday's early trading session starting off on a clean slate. The stock has a Relative Strength Index (RSI) of 72 which is clearly overbought. Traders ought to be cautious of a trend reversal or correction to feel the upward gap formed