Alibaba Group has confirmed that it is moving toward a long-anticipated initial public offering with plans to sell shares in its business-to-business unit in Hong Kong. HK newspapers said the IPO could raise as much as US$1 billion and shares could begin trading in September, according to Yahoo News.

Alibaba, founded in 1999, has thrived amid China’s export boom by helping to match foreign customers and Chinese suppliers of goods ranging from toys to industrial raw materials.

Alibaba.com, Alibaba Group’s B2B unit is the oldest of its five divisions. The group also has a C2C auction website, Taobao.com, an online payment system, Alipay.com, a software unit, Alisoft and Yahoo China.(Yahoo News)