HANGZHOU, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- E-commerce giant Alibaba began a new training program for officials from underdeveloped regions on Monday.

This targeted poverty alleviation class, attended by 46 officials, was held at "Taobao University," a learning platform based in the Hangzhou headquarters of Alibaba.

Monday's class was a cooperation between the company and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

As of December, Alibaba had trained nearly 3,000 officials.

"Many rural areas are short of skilled e-commerce personnel and officials with good knowledge of the business," said Qu Jiang, a rural e-commerce researcher at Zhejiang University.

Government/enterprise cooperation on poverty reduction needs a long-term mechanism to achieve good results, he added.

In December, Alibaba announced a fund dedicated to poverty eradication, committing 10 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars) over the next five years.

The fund will also focus on programs in education, entrepreneurship, empowering women and environmental protection.