March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., owner of China’s biggest commerce Web site, is seeking U.S. partners to attract North American companies aiming to export products to the fastest-growing major economy, Chairman Jack Ma said.

Alibaba is exploring relationships with companies such as Google Inc., EBay Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp., Ma said yesterday in an interview in New York. More than a dozen executives of Hangzhou, China-based Alibaba have visited U.S. companies in the past two weeks, he said.

“It’s very early to talk about what kind of partnership, but I believe something will happen,” said Ma, 44. “We all had good ideas, and now we need to go home and digest.”

Alibaba is moving to reduce its dependence on domestic vendors as the global recession erodes Chinese exports, which fell a record 26 percent last month. China’s $585 billion stimulus program is creating opportunity in its home market, as Beijing plows money into infrastructure improvements and other projects in the nation’s countryside, Ma said.

Alibaba.com Ltd., which charges subscribers fees to market their products on its Web site, rose 2.1 percent to close at HK$7.73 in Hong Kong trading today. The stock has gained 39 percent this year after tumbling 80 percent in 2008.

Alibaba is boosting its marketing budget outside China to $30 million this year to attract new users. Its business-to- business marketplace, which can help companies find customers in China, has 1 million U.S. users, Ma said.

International Business

Sales from Alibaba.com’s international Web site accounted for 62 percent of total revenue in the third quarter. Clients using the company’s domestic site made up the balance.

The domestic division is expected to post faster growth than the international unit this year, Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu said last month.

EBay, which operates an online auction business and the PayPal online-payment processor, is open to partnerships, Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe said in an interview this week. Alibaba has an online payment service called AliPay, which may work with PayPal, he said.

“AliPay does a great job for domestic Chinese payments,” Donahoe said. “Paypal does a great job for cross-border in and out of China. Over time, if PayPal’s platform has done well, AliPay can hook into PayPal’s platform.”

Alibaba Group owns 74 percent of Alibaba.com, which had 398,351 paying customers at the end of September, the unit reported in November.

Yahoo Connection

Alibaba.com’s $1.7 billion initial public offering in 2007 was the biggest initial share sale by an Internet company since Google’s 2004 IPO.

Yahoo, which owns almost 40 percent of Alibaba Group, declined to comment, spokeswoman Kim Rubey said. Whitney Burk, a Microsoft spokeswoman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. Google couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

China’s stimulus will help Alibaba reach its goal of doubling gross merchandise sales this year, Ma said. The government will act to make sure China’s economy keeps growing, he said, though he didn’t predict Beijing will add money to the stimulus package.

“I trust the Chinese government’s execution,” he said. “It’s like the Olympics. If they want to do it, they do it.”

Alibaba’s relationship with Yahoo hasn’t changed since Carol Bartz took over as the U.S. company’s CEO, Ma said.

“We had a good discussion, I respect what she’s doing,” Ma said. “Carol has so many things to take care of internally.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Mullaney in New York at tmullaney1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 13, 2009 05:52 EDT