How Japan's Release of Radioactive Water of Fukushima Plant into the Ocean and Jack Ma's New Startup Struck the Chords

From Thursday onwards, Japan has started to release 1.3 million tonnes of treated and diluted radioactive water from its stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, this process expected to take decades.

Japan has started releasing the radioactive water into pacific ocean after it got the U.N. nuclear watchdog's approval to release treated radioactive water from the tsunami-impacted Fukushima plant into the ocean, despite fierce resistance from Beijing and some local residents.

China has already announced an immediate blanket ban on all aquatic products from Japan.

China’s customs department has said that it would stop importing all aquatic products originating from Japan – meaning the ban could potentially limit other oceanic products besides seafood such as sea salt and seaweed.

Meanwhile, early this month Chinese business magnate Jack Ma had already announced his new startup related to fishery and agriculture, based in Hangzhou city of China, which seems to be a calculated & anticipated move to feed the market demand of China post the ban on aquatic products from Japan.

Japan exported about $600 million worth of aquatic products to China in 2022, making it the biggest market for Japanese exports, with Hong Kong second. Sales to China and Hong Kong accounted for 42% of all Japanese aquatic exports in 2022.

According to statistics from Japan's Fisheries Agency, the total export value of seafood products in 2022 was about 387 billion yen ($2.6 billion) and has been on an upward trend over the past several years. With the Asian seafood market expanding, exports to China accounted for 22.5% of the total, with scallops, bonito and tuna being the main export items to China.

So Jack Ma would be tapping the $2.6 billion market with a start up company incorporated less then a month ago. 

Coincidently, Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder has been living in Japan amid the Chinese government’s ongoing crackdown on technology companies including Alibaba and its financial payments arm Alipay.

Even if our speculation is true to certain extent then this way Jack Ma has outsmarted the Crackdown by Chinese regulators, by foreseeing the opportunity in a series of unfortunate events.

Alibaba Group co-founder Jack Ma lectures students as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo on June 12. | THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

According to most recent report by a Chinese daily,  Jack Ma has turned his focus to agriculture and education. He has made several international trips to learn about sustainable food production. Media has also reported that Ma spent time studying fisheries and tuna farming in Japan, and he also traveled to Thailand where he visited a sea shrimp farming factory.

The nuclear water release, slammed by China as 'extremely selfish', comes 12 years after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown of nuclear reactors at the plant.

While the Japanese government has said it is safe to pump the 1.3mn tonnes of water into the sea, experts say regional neighbours mistrust explanations from the country responsible for the nuclear accident.

According to the Japanese government, the process is safe as it has treated the water - enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools - used to cool the fuel rods of the Fukushima plant after it was damaged by the earthquake and resulting tsunami.

The so called "treated" radioactive-water will initially be released in smaller portions and with extra checks, with the first discharge totalling 7,800 cubic metres over about 17 days starting Thursday, according to Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).

That water will contain about 190 becquerels of tritium per litre, below the WHO drinking water limit of 10,000 becquerels per litre, according to Tepco. A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant was destroyed in March 2011 after a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake that resulted into powerful tsunami waves causing meltdowns in three reactors of Fukushima Plant. 

However, it is to be noted that the nuclear plant disaster was completely preventable, foreseen and avoidable, and according to reports, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans.

In October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants.

After 3 Yrs of Disappearance, Jack Ma Returns with an Agritech and Fishery Startup

After spending 3 years away from public view and remain biz-life in low-profile, Alibaba founder and China's entrepreneurs' idol Jack Ma is back in the news with the Chinese daily reports saying that he's behind a newly-established fishery and agriculture start-up in China.

The startup called "1.8 Meters Marine Technology (Zhejiang)" is based in China's Hangzhou city and has a registered capital of 110 million yuan (approx. USD 15 million or Rs 127 crore), said the report citing corporate registry data provider Tianyancha.

While the agritech startup's controlling shareholder is Hong Kong-based 1.8 Meters Technology Holding Ltd, which holds 80% stake. 10 % of the shares is held by one of Jack Ma's investment holdings firms, Hangzhou Dajingtou No. 22 Arts and Culture Co., has a 10% equity stake in the Startup. Besides, Simon Hu, the former chief executive of Alibaba's Ant Group, also owns a 5.5% stake in the start-up, according to the Tianyancha data.

Hangzhou Dajingtou No. 22 Arts and Culture is one of the ventures created by Jack Ma in 2019 for investment deals in China.

The new venture, which also covers processing, wholesale and retail sales of agriculture products as well as development of offshore wind power systems, fits Ma’s keen interest in the agriculture and food sector following his retirement from Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, a Chinese daily which reported this news.

Once the richest in China (2019), Jack Ma is now the fourth-wealthiest person in China with a net worth of $34.5 billion, (after Zhong Shanshan, Zhang Yiming and Ma Huateng), as well as the 39th wealthiest person in the world, as of June 2023 ranking by Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

After criticising Chinese financial regulators and banks in an October 2020 speech, Jack Ma faced a tight scrutiny of the ventures he founded and then eventually he was forced to give up control of his fintech giant Ant Financial in January 2020.

Jack Ma Foundation, Alibaba Donate Medical Supplies, COVID-19 Test Kits to India, Other Nations

Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation on Sunday announced donation of essential medical supplies, including face masks and COVID-19 test kits, to India and six other nations to help combat the spread of coronavirus.

"Collectively, these seven countries will receive a total of 1.7 million face masks, 1,65,000 test kits as well as protective clothing and medical equipment such as ventilators and forehead thermometers," the two foundations said in a statement.

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is the co-founder of multinational technology behemoth Alibaba Group.

Besides India, the medical supplies will be donated to Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The first batch of medical supplies for India arrived in Delhi last night and were received by the Indian Red Cross Society.

Similar to the arrangement with the Italian Red Cross Society in Italy, the Indian charity will facilitate the distribution of these supplies in the country, the statement said, adding that the remainder of the donation is expected to reach the country in the coming days.

With this, the two foundations have now donated essential medical supplies to 23 Asian countries totalling 7.4 million masks, 4,85,000 test kits, 1,00,000 sets of protective clothing along with other medical equipment.

Indian Red Cross Society Deputy Secretary Neel Kamal Singh took receipt of the deliveries from Vivek Sehgal, Manager, Alibaba Cloud India, acting on behalf of Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation in the presence of Ma Jia, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of China in India.

"We are one with the global community in the intense battle to protect all families against COVID-19. We are committed to doing everything we can to make a difference, most importantly by sourcing these supplies and overcoming logistical challenges to get the medical supplies to where they are needed as fast as we can," the statement said.

The move is among a slew of aid initiatives from the two foundations to support the areas of the world affected by the COVID-19 crisis, sourcing and delivering various types of medical supplies to countries across Asia, North America, Latin America, Europe and Africa, the statement said, adding that more initiatives and donations may be announced in the coming days and weeks.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a complete lockdown of the entire country for 21 days in an unprecedented move to halt the spread of the pandemic shortly after which the Centre said all road, rail and air services will remain suspended during this period.

The pandemic has claimed 25 lives in the country and number of COVID-19 cases have touched 979 in India. PTI MBI

Alibaba to Pick 50% Stake Worth $5-6 Billion in Reliance Retail To Launch E-Commerce JV in India

The great Indian consumer market, be it of any sort, is on rampage as within six months of Flipkart acquisition by Walmart, its now China's Alibaba Group Holding who is reportedly in talks with Reliance Retail to enter in a joint venture (JV) worth massive US$5-6 billion.

According to a report by LiveMint, Alibaba’s chairman Jack Ma held talks with Reliance Industries’ chairman Mukesh Ambani, who is also an India's richest man, in July-end in Mumbai and discussed about plan to create a large omnichannel i.e. both online as well offline, retail entity through the proposed JV, the report said.

Alibaba has moved a proposal according to which its willing to pick up a significant stake in Reliance Retail -- preferably 50% -- which will require Alibaba to invest $5-6 billion and it could also result in a strategic JV between Alibaba and Reliance Retail, with a smaller stake held by Alibaba, the report added.

If this massive deal goes through, it will be the largest investment by Alibaba in an Indian company.

In India, Alibaba Holding Group and its affiliates has picked up the stake in number of Indian companies including Paytm, Bigbasket and Zomato, among others.

Citing a person privy to this development, the report added that Alibaba had picked up the stake in Paytm with the objective of benefiting from Paytm’s successful e-commerce and digital wallet business in India. Reliance Retail is planning a similar model like Paytm, and once that happens, Alibaba will benefit the same way it was gaining from its association with Paytm.

Notably, Taobao and its spun off Tmall are two of the world’s largest and most popular online retail marketplaces operating in china and owned by Alibaba group, and both these e-commerce entities have together achieved a total transaction volume of $478.6 billion in fiscal 2016, and hope to double the figure to over $900 billion by 2020. As of February 2018, Taobao had at least 580 million monthly active users, while Tmall had 500 million.

With over 1 billion product listings as of 2016, the combined transaction volume of Taobao a C2C Marketplace, and Tmall.com, a B2C online marketplace, reached 3 trillion yuan in 2017, which is more than that of all US retailers and e-commerce sites combined together.

The JV between Alibaba and Reliance is also being seen as a strategic move to challenge the likes of Flipkart and Amazon who have been making significant inroads in the Indian e-commerce industry. Just few days back, Amazon has completed its five years in India and invested fresh ₹2,700 crore in its India operations.


In February this year, Alibaba has already invested whopping $500 million in India's Bigbasket and Zomato. Last month, the Chinese firm also picked up a $35 million stake in logistics startup Xpressbees, spun out of baby products retailer FirstCry.

About Reliance, its another subsidiary, Reliance Jio, is also planning to make entry into India's online grocery market by linking manufacturers, kirana stores and corner shops to his Reliance Jio customers and mint money.

It may also be recalled that in last November, Adani Wilmar, the company that markets ‘Fortune’ brand of food products in India, also announced its plans to enter the online grocery sales business with a new e-commerce portal and app called ‘Fortune Online’.

Alibaba Invests $500 Mn In BigBasket and Zomato

In what could be seen as 'Twin' funding, Alibaba has led two financial rounds of India's two domestic startups -- Bigbasket and Zomato, reported Times of India.

As per regulatory filings Alibaba led a $300 million funding round in Bengaluru based online grocer Big Basket while its affiliate Ant Financial has invested $200 million in Gurugram-based food discovery and delivery app Zomato.

Post these two funding, Big Basket is now valued at $950 million while Zomato was valued at $1.1 billion, said the report. Although it is to be noted that last month a report by wall street giant Morgan Stanley’s research arm, Zomato has shot up its valuation to US $2.5 billio

Both -- Bigbasket and Zomato -- funding transactions saw significant secondary sale of shares executed by existing investors of Bigbasket and Zomato respectively.

In a filing made to the Bombay Stock Exchange, InfoEdge, which runs portals like Naukri.com, said it had divested $50 million in Zomato shares. Big Basket also saw its early investors liquidate around $80-100 million by part selling their stakes. Alibaba had recently picked up a $35 million stake in logistics startup Xpressbees, spun out of baby products retailer FirstCry.

As per documents sourced from business research platform Paper.Vc, Alibaba through Alibaba.com Singapore E Commerce has put $196 million in primary capital in the Bengaluru-based BigBasket with existing investors Abraaj Group, Sands Capital and IFC chipping in with the rest.

Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket said to TOI, "We are going to use this capital to go deeper in our existing markets. Our focus will be to aggressively grow over the coming months."

With this investments in place, China's Alibaba is now dominating India's startup space in payments, e-commerce, logistics and food-delivery.
Jack Ma calls it "iron triangle" of businesses in ecommerce (Paytm Mall, Bigbasket), payments (Paytm) and logistics (XpressBees), which can feed off each other.

Moreover, last month it was also reported that Alibaba, along with Paytm and UCWeb, is planning to launch an over the top (OTT) video streaming service in India soon.

The Zomato funding comes at time when the food delivery segment in India is heating up with new players like UberEats, Ola’s acquisition, for which Ola has committed to invest additional $200 million, to get the slice of food delivery business in India. And now, British food delivery unicorn startup Deliveroo entering the Indian market as well.

Alibaba Invests $500 Mn In BigBasket and Zomato

In what could be seen as 'Twin' funding, Alibaba has led two financial rounds of India's two domestic startups -- Bigbasket and Zomato, reported Times of India.

As per regulatory filings Alibaba led a $300 million funding round in Bengaluru based online grocer Big Basket while its affiliate Ant Financial has invested $200 million in Gurugram-based food discovery and delivery app Zomato.

Post these two funding, Big Basket is now valued at $950 million while Zomato was valued at $1.1 billion, said the report. Although it is to be noted that last month a report by wall street giant Morgan Stanley’s research arm, Zomato has shot up its valuation to US $2.5 billio

Both -- Bigbasket and Zomato -- funding transactions saw significant secondary sale of shares executed by existing investors of Bigbasket and Zomato respectively.

In a filing made to the Bombay Stock Exchange, InfoEdge, which runs portals like Naukri.com, said it had divested $50 million in Zomato shares. Big Basket also saw its early investors liquidate around $80-100 million by part selling their stakes. Alibaba had recently picked up a $35 million stake in logistics startup Xpressbees, spun out of baby products retailer FirstCry.

As per documents sourced from business research platform Paper.Vc, Alibaba through Alibaba.com Singapore E Commerce has put $196 million in primary capital in the Bengaluru-based BigBasket with existing investors Abraaj Group, Sands Capital and IFC chipping in with the rest.

Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket said to TOI, "We are going to use this capital to go deeper in our existing markets. Our focus will be to aggressively grow over the coming months."

With this investments in place, China's Alibaba is now dominating India's startup space in payments, e-commerce, logistics and food-delivery.
Jack Ma calls it "iron triangle" of businesses in ecommerce (Paytm Mall, Bigbasket), payments (Paytm) and logistics (XpressBees), which can feed off each other.

Moreover, last month it was also reported that Alibaba, along with Paytm and UCWeb, is planning to launch an over the top (OTT) video streaming service in India soon.

The Zomato funding comes at time when the food delivery segment in India is heating up with new players like UberEats, Ola’s acquisition, for which Ola has committed to invest additional $200 million, to get the slice of food delivery business in India. And now, British food delivery unicorn startup Deliveroo entering the Indian market as well.

Forget Bitcoin; A Cryptocurrency TRON With Alibaba Connection, Is Up By 12755% In Just 1 Month

The year 2017 was the year of Cryptocurrencies where not just Bitcoin but many cryptocurrencies like Ripple, Euthereum and Litecoin have saw blistering bull run. Last month, Ripple rose 28,000% in 2017 to become the world’s second most valuable cryptocurrency just after Bitcoin.

Now, TRON, of which anyone hardly knew about a month ago, has jumped 12755% of its value in just one month. This is a growth that eclipses surges posted by the far-better known cryptocurrencies like Litecoin and Ripple, in the same period.

On December 5, the share price of TRX, as TRON token is called, was $0.00215. As of this morning, it is trading at $0.276378.

Interestingly, TRON is the brainchild of Justin Sun, a 26-year-old tech entrepreneur based in Beijing, China. His Twitter bio tells that he was the only millennial to attend Hupan University, an elite entrepreneur leadership program in China founded by billionaire business magnate and founder of Alibaba Jack Ma. Infact, most of members of TRON have been roped in from Alibaba.

Although, Jack Ma has no direct connection with TRON or isn’t an explicit backer of TRON, Nevertheless, Sun’s reputation as his protege makes TRON a cryptocurrency worth to watch out for future.

TRON's market capitalization has grown six-fold from $2.8 billion on January 1 to $18.7 billion today. The barely 4-months-old cryptocurrency is now the sixth most valuable cryptocurrency, but one of only three starting out in green this morning along with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ironically, TRON's Initial Coin Offering (ICO) actually had a rough start since it coincided with China's crackdown on cryptocurrencies in September 2017.

What is TRON ?

TRON is essentially a blockchain-based decentralized protocol that aims to construct a worldwide free content entertainment system. The protocol allows each user to freely publish, store and own data, and in the decentralized autonomous form, decides the distribution, subscription and push of contents. It also enables content creators by releasing, circulating and dealing with digital assets, thus forming a decentralized content entertainment ecosystem. Content providers will, therefore, no longer need to pay high channel fees to centralized platforms like Google Play and Apple's AppA Store.

Currently, Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap contributing 41.5% of the overall crypto market valuation, followed by Ripple, which contributes 12.4% and Ethereum which is on the third spot contributes 12.3%.

Via - Business Today & Inverse

Jack Ma and Dr Kituyi Highlight E-Commerce Opportunities For The Developing Nations

"Over the past 20 years, we have witnessed the mistakes of celebrating opportunity without facing challenges. The phenomenal rise of e-commerce must be saved from a similar fate," said Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi Secretary-General of UNCTAD during a high-level panel at E-commerce week held on April 25.

Distinguished speakers included Dr. Kituyi, Jack Ma (Founder and Chairman of AliBaba Group and UNCTAD Special Advisor for Young Entrepreneurs), Roberto Azevêdo (Director-General of World Trade Organization), Houlin Zhao (Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union) and Amanda Long (Director-General of Consumers International).

In front of an audience of over 800 attendees, the speakers discussed the topic, "Digital Transformation for All: Empowering Entrepreneurs and Small Business".

"The appetite for digital economy can inspire the development of other infrastructure sectors," said Dr. Kituyi, "e-commerce provides many opportunities for growth in the developing world but we need to seize those opportunities now," he added.

Responding to comments from ministers, Jack Ma said "E-commerce is designed for the developing world. If you want to do it, you are ready. Don't wait."

Eight Ministers from Bhutan, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Nigeria, Pakistan and Thailand made interventions during the high-level discussion showing support for e-commerce. They also highlighted some of the on-the-ground issues faced by countries attempting to enable an environment for e-commerce development.

Moderated by award-winning BBC journalist Nancy Kacungira, the discussion covered topics ranging from job creation, e-commerce trade regulations, strategies for making e-commerce more inclusive, increasing digital infrastructure and more.

"We have two challenges at WTO on E-commerce. One is defining what E-commerce means for everyone and two is inclusivity in trade for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)," said Roberto Azevêdo of Director-General of World Trade Organization.

During the over-two hours of interactive conversation, the speakers suggested new ideas for leveraging e-commerce technologies and e-commerce solutions for sustainable development.

"I encourage increased investment in broadband to continue to improve infrastructure and connect the unconnected," said Houlin Zhao the Secretary-General of ITU.

"We have the B20, but we need the B200, to create rules and laws to support the small guys, not control them" said Mr Ma.

The high-level panel discussion sets the tone for the rest of the E-commerce week's discussions. E-commerce week runs from 24-28 April 2017 on the theme "Towards Inclusive E-Commerce".

The high-level panel was live-streamed and the recording can be found here.