|

Hosted by Alibaba Group's digital economy training program Global Digital Talent, a delegation from Mexico traveled to rural Zhejiang province last week and witnessed booming livestreaming sales.

The group — nine officials and instructors, were on a weeklong trip to learn more about the transformation brought about by China's digitalization and, in particular, how rural residents enrich and empower themselves through e-commerce livestreaming.

Part of the electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP), an initiative launched in 2017 to help small businesses and entrepreneurs build globalized businesses through cross-border trade, the talent program currently operates in more than 15 markets across the world and helps "up-skill" instructors and teachers who, in turn, pass the knowledge along to their students.

GDT has trained more than 1,400 educators and tens of thousands of students worldwide over the past five years, according to Alibaba. Some 400 lecturers and 8,000 students are from Mexico.

"It's really good to see firsthand how the Chinese are doing e-commerce and building all the necessary infrastructure," said Daniel Gonzalez Arroyo, director of Instituto Estatal de Capacitacion Iraputo campus in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

"We want to learn from you and replicate the success in Mexico," he said.

Local farmers and handicraft makers in Mexico are increasingly turning to social media platforms to sell their products, Arroyo added.

On Thursday, they visited Xinchangle village in Zhuji, Zhejiang, China's largest freshwater pearl processing and trading center, and caught a glimpse of the local "pearl e-commerce" scene.

With a permanent population of a little over 2,000, "almost every household in the villages grows pearls and virtually everyone works on e-commerce livestreaming to sell pearl products," said He Lixin, Party secretary of the village.

In 2022, online and offline sales reached six billion yuan ($864.2 million), four billion yuan of which came from e-commerce livestreaming. The village's per capita GDP now stands at $30,000, He said.