Nothing new in far east? hmm, think again

Ever heard of Alibaba?

Last year two of Alibaba’s portals together handled 1.1 trillion yuan (170 $ billion) in sales, more than eBay and Amazon combined.

Alibaba is on the track to become the world first e-commerce firm to handle 1 trillion $ a yer in transaction.

Soon afterwards, Alibaba.com is expected to announce details of its initial public offering (IPO) possibly even bigger than Facebook’s listing.

Estimates of the likely valuation of Alibaba range from 55 $ billion to 120 $ billion.