Alibaba provides subsidies for exporters

HANGZHOU - Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will offer subsidies to small and medium-sized domestic exporters that complete transactions on its platform, the company announced on Tuesday.

If exporters complete services including logistics, customs clearance and tax rebates through Alibaba's online platform OneTouch, they will get a maximum subsidy of 0.03 yuan, or less than half a US cent, in cash for each $1 of transaction volume, Alibaba said.

"The move is to integrate scattered services of small and medium-sized export enterprises via the platform, thus lowering down costs and breeding more profits," said Wu Minzhi, President of Alibaba's business-to-business (B2B) unit.

Statistics released by Alibaba showed that for Chinese small export enterprises, spending on commodity circulation has taken up over 30 percent of total costs.

"Logistics, customs clearance and tax rebates have consumed time and manpower of small and medium-sized export companies," said Wei Qiang, a manager in charge of Alibaba's foreign trade service sector.

He said for banks, logistics companies and customs, the OneTouch platform serves as "a key client" by integrating tens of thousands of export-oriented enterprises.

"As for those companies, convenient channels for export, financing and logistics could help them lower costs," he said.

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