Commerce to help farmers get benefits of online markets

By Thai PBS

 

 

Officials of the Business Development Department will help farmers to team up together to form companies or other business entities to take advantage of Alibaba’s online super-market to sell their agricultural produce.

 

Commerce Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong said Monday (April 23) that with the launch of Alibaba’s Tmall online supermarket in Thailand, Thai entrepreneurs and agriculturalists must adapt themselves with the new marketing platform so they can have access to new markets and new consumers.

 

He disclosed that, so far, over 100 durian orchard owners have registered to sell their durian online via Tmall.com, adding that more Thai fruits besides durian would be available on sale online to Chinese consumers such as mangosteen and longan.

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/commerce-help-farmers-get-benefits-online-markets/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2018-04-24

5 hours ago, webfact said:

He disclosed that, so far, over 100 durian orchard owners have registered to sell their durian online via Tmall.com

I take it they're all fluent in Chinese then? I looked at the website yesterday and couldn't see any option to select a language other than Chinese.

 

 

7 hours ago, webfact said:

take advantage of Alibaba’s online super-market to sell their agricultural produce

Commerce did already have a Thailand e-commerce program to sell agricultural products to Chinese buyers that seemed very successful. Now Prayut seems to have abandoned that effort for a Chinese monopoly of the same.

Thailand 4.0 becomes another clone of foreign creations.

Alibaba should liven things up a bit and add a 'Rice Market' to their platform allowing Thai rice farmers to sell directly to customers. 

 

 

4 hours ago, bluesofa said:

I take it they're all fluent in Chinese then? I looked at the website yesterday and couldn't see any option to select a language other than Chinese.

Their Chinese will on par with their English in no time.  Fluency ? Ah no.

36 minutes ago, yellowboat said:

Their Chinese will on par with their English in no time.  Fluency ? Ah no.

Probably not.

All I can do is quote what the minister claimed that over 100 owners have registered on a Chinese language only website.

To me the logic is either they haven't, or if they have they're already in league with a Chinese group who want to buy their durians.

 

Any other suggestions?

 

With the contribution of Alibaba-and-the-40-robbers 'uncle' chose to cosy with? Let me doubt it, it will be for the Thai consumers to pay (a lot) more for all their food inthe end, squeezed by the Thai 'food-chain', wanting to recuperate some money after being squeezed dry itself by Alibaba & Co. 1or 2 Baht for a lime not long ago, now rather 5 to 6 already , soon 10 and more? 

20 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

Probably not.

All I can do is quote what the minister claimed that over 100 owners have registered on a Chinese language only website.

To me the logic is either they haven't, or if they have they're already in league with a Chinese group who want to buy their durians.

 

Any other suggestions?

The farmers are reliant on middlemen most likely, and a bilingual website is more time consuming to produce in content and in coding.  At the end of the day, Ma just wants to make money off of China's appetite for fruit, and impress his new best friend Prayut with how fast he can make it.  Prayut will herald this union as a junta 4.0 triumph for allowing Ma into the market.  The farmers might make a bit more money.  We will have to wait and see.