Yahoo Japan on tie-up talks with China's Taobao

TOKYO, JAPAN: Shares of Yahoo Japan rose almost 4 percent after the company said it is in talks with China's Taobao to link their Internet shopping sites, seeking access to the rapidly growing Chinese online retail market.

Yahoo Japan, the country's No.2 online shopping site operator after Rakuten, wants to close the deal as early as June so that Japanese users can buy Chinese products through Yahoo Japan's website and vice versa, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

Taobao is a group company of Chinese Internet giant Alibaba, whose investors include Japan's Softbank. Softbank also has capital ties with Yahoo Japan.

Reuters reported last month that Alibaba was in talks with Softbank to form a tie-up to help merchants from their online marketplaces sell into each other's markets.

Yahoo Japan was up 3.8 percent at 35,350 yen by the midday break, outperforming the benchmark Nikkei .N225 average, which was up 0.7 percent.