Alibaba spent over $160m removing fake goods since 2013

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba revealed that it spent over $160m in almost two years just trying to remove fake goods from its website.

The trading website, which is worth more than $250bn, spent the sum between the beginning of 2013 and November 2014, addressing the problem of traders who specialise in counterfeit items, which are enormously popular in China.

Alibaba's "snide" task force clocked up seven times more in costs than eBay says it spends on tackling counterfeits in a year.

Moreover, Alibaba said it plans to add another 200 people as fake-busters, on top of the 2,000 employees that it has in place already. Plus there are 5,400 volunteers already participating in the website's online surveillance programme.

In a statement, Alibaba CEO Jonathan Lu said: "We have made great strides in addressing this issue. However counterfeiting is a global problem and one that we need to face together as a society. From Alibaba Group's perspective, we bear a serious responsibility in this fight against counterfeits.

"If e-commerce does well in China, that may have little to do with Alibaba Group, but if counterfeits in society are not tackled effectively, it has a lot to do with Alibaba Group."

Alibaba made more than $9bn in last month's Single's Day, but more than 10% of the goods that were bought that day were counterfeit, according to the official State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC).