JAKARTA, Indonesia

Global e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched two initiatives this September to empower its Vietnamese sellers, according to a local media report Monday.

With its Super September 2020 program, the Chinese digital business giant aims to help small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) trade and thrive, the daily Viet Nam News reported.

It said the top 55 Vietnamese sellers were participating in the promotion campaign in categories like food and beverage, agriculture and home and garden, as well as furniture and apparel.

Last year, the Chinese company expressed its commitment to support 10,000 Vietnamese SMEs in five years.

"Traditional offline routes are costly and have been confronted with many challenges," the daily quoted Stephen Kuo, the company's Asia Pacific chief.

Kuo said that this campaign had further reinforced the company's belief that digitalization is an inevitable trend for sellers to sustain and grow their businesses.

"We believe that with the power of e-commerce, Alibaba.com and its various initiatives can enable more Vietnamese SMEs to recover and even generate sustainable growth," he added.

Until March 31, more than 20 million buyers from approximately 190 countries sourced business opportunities or completed transactions on Alibaba.com in 12 months, according to the report.