The first batch of 28 provincial rural e-commerce grass-roots demonstration stations, including two sites from Zhanjiang, were awarded at the recent Guangdong Provincial Rural E-commerce Work Promotion Meeting held in Raoping county, Chaozhou.

The two from Zhanjiang were Kongjie E-commerce Service Website and Guangdong Pineapple Group Co Ltd.

Guangdong has planned to build a rural e-commerce industrial park in its 122 counties or central towns in three to five years, as well as a rural e-commerce demonstration station in its 19,732 villages, aiming to form a whole rural e-commerce industrial chain and to gather resources from various fields.

Zhanjiang has set up 11 rural e-commerce training institutions, three rural e-commerce training, entrepreneurship, and employment bases, as well as 67 rural e-commerce service stations by the end of April, according to the city's bureau of human resources and social security.

In 2019, Zhanjiang organized free e-commerce training for 4,346 people, and had 118 e-commerce startups, creating jobs for 2,620 people. From January to April, the city carried out rural e-commerce training for 246 people amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Development of rural e-commerce has also boosted Zhanjiang's poverty alleviation efforts and rural revitalization. To date, the city's targeted poverty alleviation through e-commerce has covered its 135 provincial-level impoverished villages, accounting for about 62 percent of the city's total.

Zhanjiang will further its efforts in strengthening online e-commerce training, as well as focus on the construction of three rural commerce training, entrepreneurship, and employment bases in the future.