Alibaba.com, China's biggest e-commerce company, will raise up to US$1 billion in a Hong Kong initial public offering this year, spurning the US markets, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.

Alibaba, which has long been rumoured as an IPO candidate, has chosen Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to handle the deal, the newspaper said, adding that it will avoid a New York listing because of a tighter regulatory environment in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals.

But many mainland technology firms still favour listing on the Nasdaq, as there is a large pool of mostly West Coast investors with a long history of trading and understanding high-tech companies.