Tencent News “Frontline” Fang Yan
On January 25, Alibaba announced today that it has set up a special fund for the supply of medical supplies of 1 billion yuan to directly procure medical supplies from home and abroad and send them to hospitals in Wuhan and Hubei on a targeted basis.
Alibaba said that today, relevant personnel from Alibaba's international station have rushed to 14 countries and regions, including Indonesia and South Korea, to find suppliers of medical supplies. As of 3:00 p.m. today, we have contacted 42 overseas suppliers with the ability to supply high-quality masks, and are doing detailed statistics on the supply capacity of medical-grade masks.
At the same time, Alibaba will continue to mobilize matching production capacity domestically and directly coordinate production and procurement of medical supplies. Currently, it has coordinated the emergency resumption of work at factories in 58 regions including Yiwu, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou to expedite the production of medical supplies.
Ali said that the first batch of medical protective products such as 2 million N95 masks, 300,000 medical surgical masks, and 1 million disposable medical masks will be purchased, and the first stage will send 100 trucks to Wuhan through 3 special green channels.
Furthermore, in order for medical staff at Wuhan hospitals to eat hot meals every day, Alibaba has set up a special team centered around Hema Wuhan's 18 stores. Starting tomorrow (January 26), it will provide 300 free meals of breakfast, lunch, and dinner for Wuhan Red Cross Hospital and Wuhan No. 6 Hospital every day, and supply 3144 servings of drinking water, instant noodles, self-heating food and other supplies every day to 21 medical institutions in Wuchang District of Wuhan City. Other medical units have also begun to coordinate the distribution of supplies such as food, drinking water, and fast food.
In response to the livelihood security issues of Wuhan residents, the Tmall supermarket and the 18 Hema Xiansheng supermarkets in Wuhan will not close, prices will not increase, shelves will not be empty, delivery fees for hungry takeout will not rise, and takeout will not stop. Protective equipment such as masks, disinfectant, hand sanitizer, and thermometers will also continue to be sold on Taobao and Tmall supermarkets.
Furthermore, in the middle of the night of January 24, the “Come on Wuhan” charity fund-raising project was launched. The first phase had already raised 71.4 million yuan in 8 hours. Various public welfare institutions used the funds to purchase medical supplies in batches to Wuhan hospitals. Alibaba will also establish material donation standards, continue to cooperate with high-quality public welfare institutions, and open channels for social donations.
