How Xi's statements transformed online services

Cao Kai and wife Zhang Shu in a village in Anhui province take photos of their products sold in their Taobao store, March 31, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Thanks to the rapid development of China's e-commerce industry, 1,311 Taobao villages across the country are turning poor communities into huge online retail hubs, creating more than 840,000 job opportunities.

These villages are called Taobao villages because at least 10 percent of the population living in these rural communities makes its living by selling products online -- mostly on Taobao.com, the Alibaba-owned consumer-to-consumer marketplace. The e-commerce annual turnover of each village is no less than 10 million yuan.