China’s internet industry received highest honors on Thursday, as President Xi Jinping declared victory over absolute poverty in the country. Several individuals and organizations were awarded for their contributions, including the recently much-criticized digital champions.
Alibaba and Pinduoduo were among the 1,500 outstanding institutions, that included companies, schools, and hospitals, while ride-hailing platform Didi Chuxing’s chairman and CEO Cheng Wei entered the list of nearly 2,000 excellent individuals, the three companies confirmed with KrASIA on Friday.
In the past eight years, Alibaba recorded sales of about RMB 1 trillion (USD 155 billion) worth of goods from rural areas on its e-commerce platforms. Since 2018, sales of agricultural products from the 832 most impoverished counties in China reached RMB 270 billion (USD 42 billion).
The e-commerce giant has been building warehouses close to rural areas in the southwestern Yunnan province, Sichuan, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, as well as Shaanxi in the northwest. For example, leveraging on its warehouse in Xi’an, in the Shaanxi province, goods grown in more than 1,000 villages of the area debuted on November 11, 2020 on Tmall, available for consumers nationwide.
Likewise, Pinduoduo’s platform was acclaimed for bringing food directly from farm to home. In the last 3 years, the firm has trained more than 6,700 small shop owners in 21 provinces to become skilled in e-commerce.
Didi’s Cheng Wei earned praise as outstanding leader of a company that created 13.6 million flexible jobs in 2019 and lifted 350,000 people out of poverty, now taking home an average salary of over RMB 5,000 (USD 774) per month, the company announced on Friday.
“Poverty relief is an important issue not only in China, but around the world. As a young technology company, we are inspired to be part of the national and global endeavors to end poverty,” said Cheng.