Chinese 'Taobao villages' are turning poor communities into huge online retail hubs

pulse

February 27, 2017 7:47 PM

The Chinese government hopes to eliminate poverty by 2020, and it's taking an entrepreneurial approach to get there.

Chinese workers process packages for Alibaba sales (among others).

For many people, selling knickknacks online is a hobby. In China, it's becoming a national policy to solve poverty.

As part of one of the more ambitious — and successful — approaches to reach President Xi Jinping's goal of eliminating poverty by 2020, China has created more than 1,000 "Taobao villages" within the last decade.

These villages are so-named because residents sell everything from dance costumes to electronics to children's toys on one of the world's largest retail sites, Taobao. Within just a few years, many communities have seen thousands of people who left for brighter futures come back to build up the local economy in these Taobao villages.

By last measure, Taobao — a property owned by Chinese retail giant Alibaba — was the 12th most visited site on the internet. The total value of all its goods in 2013 was judged to be more than $145 billion, a figure that dwarfs Amazon's $88 billion.

China's government has looked at those figures and seen them as an opportunity to spur economic growth in poor villages. As Josh Freedman reported for Quartz, buildings are painted with hopeful slogans, such as "

Taobao villages won't be the only means of eliminating poverty — other large, top-down programs meant to uplift social welfare are sure to play a role, too — but they have seemed to energize China's poor with an entrepreneurial spirit.

In 2016,World Bank economist and country director for China, expressed a strong sense of optimism.

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