Jurin Laksanawisit, Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister of Thailand, helped sell nearly 5,000 durians and 20,000 young coconuts from his country to Chinese consumers via a live broadcast on June 9.
(Photo/pixabay)
With the fruit industry heavily impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic, the Ministry of Commerce in Thailand saw e-commerce as an opportunity to stimulate the economy. From June 1 to 7, about 140,000 durians, 320,000 young coconuts and 3.9 million mangosteens were sold through the marketplace under China's e-commerce giant Alibaba.
The Chinese market is one of the most important in the world, and Thailand and China boast huge potential in cross-border e-commerce cooperation, said Jurin Laksanawisit.
China has been one of Thailand's largest fruit trading partners in the past three years, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the Ministry of Commerce in Thailand.
In 2019, Thailand exported over 1.2 million tons of fruit to China, accounting for 57.1 percent of the country's fruit exports and generating a revenue of 64.5 billion Thai Baht (about $2.1 billion).
With demand in the Chinese market seeing a resurgence, Thailand’s fruit exports have continued to rise, with total exports for 2020 expected to increase 10 percent year on year, according to Paiboon Wongchotesathit, president of the Thai Fresh Fruit Traders & Exporters Association.
E-commerce platforms, which are better tailored to consumers’ spending habits, have become a trend of bilateral trade. As China has formed a relatively advanced e-commerce development concept and technology and bilateral trade will be increasingly conducted through e-commerce platforms, Thailand hopes that more Chinese e-commerce companies will help promote the industry’s development in Thailand, said Jurin Laksanawisit.
Thailand’s Chiang Mai province recently announced the establishment of a China-Thailand cross-border industrial incubator together with Chinese companies and the China Overseas Security Research Institute to help Chinese cross-border companies do business in Thailand more conveniently.
