File photo: China Daily

WUHAN, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Wuhan, the former epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak in central China's Hubei Province, will hand out vouchers worth 500 million yuan (70.6 million U.S. dollars) to boost consumption, local authorities said Friday.

Starting at Sunday noon, all people in Wuhan, including non-locals, will be able to apply and use the vouchers, a move aimed to support the operation resumption in commercial, trade, cultural and tourism sectors, according to the municipal bureau of commerce.

Some 18 million yuan of the vouchers will be earmarked for the registered impoverished people in the city.

The municipal government will hand out the vouchers weekly via the online platforms of Alibaba, Meituan Dianping and Tencent. The above three e-commerce giants will also offer their own coupons worth a total of 1.8 billion yuan, which may be used together with the government-issued vouchers.

The first stage of distribution will be from April 19 to May 31, and the second stage from June 1 to July 31.

Consumers will be able to use the vouchers for offline payments in restaurants, shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and cultural and tourist sites, and, during the first stage, they can only use them when their actual expenses reach or exceed three times the voucher value.

As the COVID-19 epidemic wanes in China, a number of local governments have started to offer vouchers to unleash consumption potential.

A survey conducted by Alipay shows that over 10 million businesses have benefited from the nationwide voucher campaigns, with over 90 percent of them being micro, small and medium-sized businesses.