Alibaba will waive the platform service annual fee for all Tmall merchants in the first half of 2020 and provide low-interest and interest-free loans to Hubei merchants on Taobao and Tmall.

The Alibaba Group said that it would waive the annual service fee for platform services in the first half of 2020 for all merchants in its Tmall mall and provide free services for merchants located in Hubei. Hubei is at the center of the new coronavirus epidemic.

Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics platform, reduced the warehouse rent for two months by March 31, 2020. Alibaba’s financial technology affiliate Ant Financial will provide interest-free and low-interest loans to businesses registered in Hubei on e-commerce site Taobao and Tmall. MYbank will allocate a total of US $ 1.43 billion in loans for a period of 12 months, of which the interest for the first 3 months of the loan is free, and the interest rate for the next 9 months will be discounted.

The RMB 1 billion fund set up to subsidize supply chain and logistics services will provide subsidies for courier services.

As consumers scrambled to stock medical supplies such as medical surgical masks in January of this year, Taobao and Tmall had difficulty meeting their demand for these supplies.