ALIBABA and its financial branch paid a total of 23.8 billion yuan (US$3.41 billion) in taxes in 2016, up 33 percent compared with 2015, the company said Tuesday.

    According to Alibaba, the company led merchants operating on its platforms, upstream manufacturers and logistics companies to pay at least 200 billion yuan in taxes last year and created more than 30 million jobs.

    The company has also catalyzed new business such as outsourcing of customer service, product photography, quality testing, e-shop design, recruitment and training for e-commerce. There are over 45,000 such service providers on Alibaba’s shopping platforms, Taobao and Tmall, the company said, adding those service providers had registered 142 percent growth in income year on year as of Sept. 30.

    Its Ant Financial had offered services of various kinds to 600 million people globally as of the end of 2016.

    (Xinhua)