HANGZHOU, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- NetEase Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Friday announced that they had reached strategic cooperation, with Alibaba's acquisition of NetEase's import e-commerce platform Kaola.

According to the deal, Alibaba agreed to acquire Kaola for 2 billion U.S. dollars.

In another agreement, Alibaba, as the lead investor, participated in a round of financing of 700 million dollars for NetEase's Cloud Music.

Both of the Chinese internet giants are based in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. The two companies said the integration helps them work more closely together to explore the future of the digital economy era.

Daniel Zhang, chief executive officer of Alibaba, said Alibaba plans for Kaola to continue to operate independently under its current brand.

William Ding, chief executive officer of NetEase, said NetEase expects Kaola to continue to provide quality cross-border e-commerce services to its users within the Alibaba ecosystem. Enditem