Alibaba trains officials to help poverty relief

HANGZHOU - E-commerce giant Alibaba began a new training program for officials from underdeveloped regions on Monday.

This targeted poverty alleviation class, attended by 46 officials, was held at "Taobao University," a learning platform based in the Hangzhou headquarters of Alibaba.

Monday's class was a cooperation between the company and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

As of December, Alibaba had trained nearly 3,000 officials.

"Many rural areas are short of skilled e-commerce personnel and officials with good knowledge of the business," said Qu Jiang, a rural e-commerce researcher at Zhejiang University.

Government/enterprise cooperation on poverty reduction needs a long-term mechanism to achieve good results, he added.

In December, Alibaba announced a fund dedicated to poverty eradication, committing 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) over the next five years.

The fund will also focus on programs in education, entrepreneurship, empowering women and environmental protection.