Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, which was caught in a regulatory scrutiny sometime ago for monopolistic market practices, has now announced an investment of 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) by 2025 to support its President Xi Jinping’s call for "common prosperity".
In April, the company was slapped a fine of a whopping 18.2 billion yuan accounting for 4 per cent of its total domestic revenue in 2019 for violating the Anti-Monopoly Law.
According to Chinese news platform CGTN, Alibaba, once led by the iconic billionaire Jack Ma, said that the funds will be used to “promote investments in technology, support small and medium-sized enterprises, foster development in rural areas and improve insurance protection for gig economy workers, including deliverymen and ride-hailing drivers.”
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The clamp down on Ma and his companies shocked not just China’s private sector but sent jitters the world over.
Alibaba is not alone. Other companies including food delivery giant Meituan, e-commerce player Pinduoduo and tech giant Tencent too have announced their commitment towards shouldering Xi’s "common prosperity" drive.
Pinduoduo has already announced a 10 billion yuan initiative for farmers' welfare. Last month Tencent said that it would double the amount of money allocated for social responsibility programmes to about $15 billion.
While China’s common prosperity drive aims to redistribute income in the country, this has created an environment of uncertainty for the private sector.
