The South China Morning Post's ten-year-old paywall is the first casualty of the publisher's acquisition by Alibaba.

The Chinese e-commerce giant has confirmed its acquisition following reports of negotiations in recent weeks. The price is reported to have been HK$2,060,600,000 (about US$265 million) cash.

The publisher says the deal will help it fulfil long-held ambitions to be a global English-language window for the world into China.

Alibaba group executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai is quoted that the paywall was "so inconvenient, even for people who want to pay".

He says Alibabva believes users should not pay for service or content: "The people who end up paying are advertisers who want to reach out to these users."

Alibaba is now expected to invest heavily in the SCMP digital offering, while keeping the print edition intact. "Some say the newspaper industry is a sunset industry. We don't see it that way.

"We see it as an opportunity to use our technological expertise and our digital assets to distribute news in a way that has never been done before," he said.

Tsai stressed that the South China Morning Post would maintain its editorial independence. Its stance has been criticised in recent years for an increasingly pro-Beijing position, particularly in the print edition. Tsai says retaining trust will depend on "reporting that is objective, balanced and fair.

"If we don't have that trust, we cannot build up our readership. Even though we are the corporate owner, we will let the editors decide the editorial policy and direction of coverage for any story. That's our basic principle."

The Post would seek to "tell the truth" about the world's second largest economy: "China is a rising economy and it is the second-largest economy in the world. People should learn more about China, but coverage about China should be balanced and fair."