China's Alibaba Group, the world's and China's largest e-commerce firm, will promote French brands to Chinese consumers using its popular online platforms.

A new agreement with the French government signed late last week will see Alibaba helping French firms expand their sales in China by providing them with a number of services. These include brand promotion, express enrollment and marketing support on Alibaba's online retail platform, Tmall.com.

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Tmall.com will launch a French brands promotion campaign named "Elegance of France" that will be joined by over 30 online flagship stores. The week-long campaign started May 19 and is focusing on exclusive product launches and specialty limited-edition items from featured French brands.

The three-year deal was signed at Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou, capital Zhejiang province. Alibaba and the French government had earlier signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Signing for Alibaba was founder and chairman Jack Ma while French foreign minister Laurent Fabius signed for France.

Fabius said this agreement is a wonderful opportunity to allow more and more Chinese customers to discover new French brands through a modern system of distribution.

He is confident the deal will significantly widen the choice of French products available for Chinese consumers, who will enjoy their well-deserved reputation of high quality and security.

Ma said the deal supported Alibaba's mission of helping make it easy to do business anywhere on the planet. He noted that the MOU is an example of how Alibaba Group can work hand-in-hand with foreign trade entities to expand global cross-border trade in order to benefit both global businesses and Chinese consumers through its marketplaces.

Alibaba is the world's largest online and mobile commerce company. In 2013, Alibaba had a gross merchandise volume of US$248 billion on its three major trading platforms.