(Yicai Global) Sept. 20 -- Leading Chinese group-buying platform Pinduoduo plans to invest CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion) to support China's manufacturers in their efforts to expand overseas.

In the first phase of the initiative, Pinduoduo will promote 100 Chinese brands abroad and support 10,000 manufacturers to directly connect with overseas markets, the Shanghai-based company announced yesterday.

The rival of Alibaba Group Holding and JD.Com will provide infrastructure services, such as warehousing, cross-border logistics, and after-sales services. It will also launch integrated solutions for language and culture, product standards, intellectual property services, legal aid, and trade arbitration, as well as supply customized courses to producers and embrace long-term preferential policies of zero deposit and commission.

Pinduoduo’s cross-border e-commerce business will not simply repeat what others have already done, but will strive to create its own unique value, company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Chen Lei said.

“In the domestic consumer market, Pinduoduo has become a new engine for the transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry,” Chen said. “We will learn from successful domestic experience and increase investment in scientific research and technology to better facilitate the overseas businesses of Chinese manufacturers.”

Pinduoduo will use its credit as a listed company and international professional team to provide strong legal service support for China’s manufacturing industry to expand worldwide and help businesses build a complete legal protection system to gain deserved value and respect, the e-retailer said.

Recognition of large platforms in many countries, mainly the United States, is not as high as that in the Chinese market, Zhang Zhouping, director of the cross-border e-commerce department at the e-commerce research center of 100ec.Cn, told Yicai Global, adding that overseas consumers also have more personalized needs.

Whether Pinduoduo can impress online consumers abroad and make it become the company’s second growth pillar based on traffic, cost-effectiveness, and consumption concepts remains to be tested, Zhang noted.

Editor: Futura Costaglione