Wudu district, in Gansu province has held a ceremony on Jan 14 to mark the commencement of the second pilot county of the "Ten Thousands Counties and Villages" project by Internet giant Taobao. The project by the Chinese online marketplace conglomerate, aims at developing a greater penetration of e-commerce in rural areas.

Wudu county is the second county to welcome the project after Cheng county also in Gansu province.

The project received the support of the Gansu Commerce Department and Alibaba Group, with headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Taobao is one of Alibaba Group's flagship subsidiary businesses.

Alibaba Group launched the "Ten Thousands Counties and Villages" project in October, 2014, and invested 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) with the intention of building a rural electronic commerce service system in 3-5 years. The system is aimed at covering 1,000 counties and more than 100,000 villagers.

At the event, Alibaba announced that the counties' e-commerce operation centers will deal with logistics, training institutes, and inspection agencies to help agricultural products enter the city market. Village centers will mainly handle the purchasing of local products and help farmers open online stores.

Source: China Daily