E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Wednesday that it would continue to make more investments to boost its presence in rural areas.

星期三，电商巨头阿里巴巴控股公司表示，他们将继续追加投资，以拓展在农村地区的淘宝业务。

The company, which announced a 10 billion yuan ($1.54 billion) rural investment plan, is considering more steps to improve the living conditions of farmers, said Jack¹ Ma, chairman of the group.

据CEO马云表示，阿里巴巴宣布了一项100亿元（15.4亿美元）的农村投资计划，该公司正在考虑通过更多举措来改善农民的居住条件。

Alibaba launched its first "Stocking for China's Lunar New Year Festival" program at an e-commerce summit in Yan'an on Wednesday. The program enables farmers to sell their agriculture products in cities through the Alibaba platforms.

星期三，在延安的一个电商峰会上，阿里巴巴启动了首届阿里年货节。各地特色农产品年货将通过阿里巴巴的平台被送到更多城市消费者手里。

"Modernization² of agriculture is key to China's economic growth in the next two decades," Ma said. "Making full use of the Internet, including big data, to help farmers out of poverty is a smart strategy."

马云说，“未来20年，中国经济发展的关键是农业现代化。充分利用互联网和大数据优势来帮助农民脱贫致富是一个充满智慧的策略。”

He said the program is aimed at tapping the entrepreneurial potential of the about 1 million rural migrant workers who return from the cities to their home villages to start their own businesses.

他说，此项目旨在发掘100万名农民工的创业潜能，他们从城市回到农村，准备大干自己的事业。

This is not the first time that Alibaba is attaching such importance to agriculture and rural networks. In October 2014, the company said it would spend 10 billion yuan in the next three to five years on 1,000 "operational centers" in counties and up to 100,000 "service outlets³" in villages.

这并不是阿里巴巴第一次与农业和农村网络建立如此重要的连接。早在2014年10月，该公司就表示，在未来的三到五年里将投资100亿元推行“千县万村计划”，开拓农村市场的第一线基地。

Under the company's rural marketing⁴ strategy, the group is targeting rural people as potential buyers and sellers.

根据阿里巴巴的农村淘宝发展战略，它将瞄准农民阶层作为自己的潜在客户。

Sun Lijun, vice-president of Alibaba, who is in charge of the rural plan, said the company has established rural retail⁵ networks in 23 provinces and autonomous⁶ regions.

阿里巴巴负责农村淘宝计划的副总裁孙立军表示，该公司已经在中国23个省市自治区拓展了农村零售业务。