Tech firms including Alibaba donate US$432 million to boost frontline efforts in Hubei province

Thirty information technology and new economy companies, including Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and Meituan Dianping, have together donated more than 3 billion yuan (US$432.5 million). Earlier, Country Garden and China Evergrande, two of the country’s biggest property developers, along with about 80 companies from the sector, offered a combined 1.2 billion yuan in aid.
Alibaba tops the list and has offered 1 billion yuan for the purchase of medical materials for hospitals in Hubei province and Wuhan. Moreover, an insurance platform owned by Alipay, Alibaba’s payments subsidiary, will help affected medical staff apply for 100,000 yuan each for treatment. In case of death, it will help their families apply for 500,000 yuan. Another unit, Alibaba Health Information Technology, which usually charges a fee, will offer some of its services for free during the outbreak. It has already offered free online medical advice to 2.8 million people during the past week.
Experts say that these companies are keen to donate for communications and PR reasons.