Multilingual e-commerce platform to help China's ethnic farmers in foreign trade

A multilingual e-commerce platform, available in Chinese, Uygur, Tibetan, Mongolian and English, selling China's distinctive agricultural products has begun its trial run.

The platform has been developed by Yu Hongzhi, a professor at Northwest Minzu University located in Gansu Province, and her team.

Targeting Belt and Road countries, the platform is expected to facilitate cross-border trade for farmers from various ethnic groups and help more local specialties go global, according to the developers.

Shining light on the platform's advantages, Yu said fruit farmers from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, for instance, could upload the information about Hami melon, the region's popular specialty, onto the platform in Uygur, and English-speaking consumers could instantly browse its English version.

More than 2,600 characteristic agricultural products from China are available on the e-commerce platform, including fruits, vegetables and milk.

"Through this platform, we aim to break the language barrier in trade and help more Chinese farmers find new markets online, as well as facilitate trade with Belt and Road countries," Yu said.

China's trade in goods with Belt and Road countries amounted to 1.35 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020, up 0.7 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Commerce.