Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com are seeing strong sales momentum in their respective campaigns for this year’s 618 shopping festival, on the back of the government’s national subsidy programme.Preliminary 618 retail data from Taobao and Tmall Group (TTG), Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce unit, showed sales of categories that benefit from government subsidies – including consumer electronics products and home appliances – surged 283 per cent during the campaign’s initial...