The tech giant announced Friday that it would spend the staggering sum by 2025 with an eye on five priorities: innovation in technology, economic development, the creation of “high-quality employment,” supporting vulnerable communities, and setting up a special development fund.
The company also laid out 10 specific goals it plans to tackle, from increasing technological investment in the country’s less developed regions to improving the welfare of gig economy workers to working to speed up the growth of small businesses and agriculture.
Alibaba is also setting up what it’s calling the “Prosperity Advancement Working Committee,” which will be helmed by Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang.
“Alibaba is a beneficiary of the strong social and economic progress in China over the past 22 years. We firmly believe that if society is doing well and the economy is doing well, then Alibaba will do well,” he said in a statement Friday.
“We are eager to do our part to support the realization of common prosperity through high-quality development.”
It said last Tuesday that it would donate $372 million to the development of China’s agricultural sector and rural areas, with plans to give away 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) toward similar causes overall.
The decision was significant for the US-listed firm, which had posted a profit for the first time as a public company in the quarter ended June.
The end goal
The phrase itself is a historically significant one in China, and Xi’s mention of the term echoes its use by Chairman Mao Zedong during the last century.
Back then, the former Communist leader also advocated for “common prosperity” as a way to mobilize peasants and take power away from the rural elites, including rich landlords and farmers.
— CNN’s Beijing bureau and Laura He contributed to this report.