AFP - Alibaba.com, China's biggest business-to-business web group, on Thursday officially started operations in Brazil, which it said showed huge potential for growth.

The Hong Kong-based company, which is partnered in the venture with another firm from the same territory, Ludatrade Technologies, presented its activities at a news conference in Sao Paulo.

Alibaba's sales director, Timothy Leung, said Internet penetration and a blossoming emerging-market economy made Brazil ripe for the Chinese group's formula of marketing small- and medium-sized companies on its website.

"We want to see a growth rate of 30 percent to 50 percent," Ludatrade's chief executive, Kenneth Ma, said.

Alibaba is well known in Asia for matching up buyers and sellers on its web platforms, which operate in English, Chinese and Japanese.

Each selling company pays a flat fee to display wares and contact information to potential clients in 240 countries and territories.

Worldwide, that fee is 3,000 dollars, Leung said.

But Ma said Brazilian businesses would be asked to pay 50 percent more -- 4,500 dollars -- to cover the cost of translating into English product descriptions and catalogues, and for buyer verification.

Leung said 156,000 users in Brazil had already signed up for Alibaba's services. The company staff of 20 was to be expanded to 1,000 by the end of 2010, he said.

Brazil was currently ranked 23rd among exporting nations and its small companies had trouble finding clients abroad, Leung said.

"We want to bring Brazil from 23 to the top 10. That's our dream," he said.

Alibaba.com, whose parent Alibaba Group is 40 percent owned by US Internet giant Yahoo!, had net revenue of 162 million dollars in the last quarter of 2009, Leung said.

The entire year showed 29 percent growth compared to 2008, according to figures for the publicly traded company.