Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit livestreamed on Alibaba's e-commerce platform Tmall to boost Thai fruit sales on June 9, 2020. Photo: courtesy of Tmall

Diplomats from 16 countries joined the mid-year "618" shopping festival on Alibaba's Tmall Tuesday, attracting 9 million netizens and selling millions of products through livestreaming.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit, who demonstrated the process of peeling a mangosteen during the event, sold out the fruit in seconds. Laksanawisit's score included 5,000 durians, 20,000 coconuts, and 3,000 bags of fragrant rice Tuesday night, according to data from Tmall sent to the Global Times on Wednesday.

Laksanawisit was the sales champion, winning diplomats from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, South Korea, Spain and Uruguay.

Before the "618" shopping festival started on June 1, Thailand dispatched a special express train to carry fruit to China and established an online store on Tmall to promote the country's products to 800 million Chinese consumers. In the first week of the festival, Thailand's official store sold 140,000 durians, 3.9 million mangosteens and 320,000 coconuts, per data from Tmall.

Thailand sent a special train carrying Thai fruit to China for sale on Tmall. Photo: courtesy of Tmall

The consul-general of South Korea in Shanghai took second place, selling 120,000 units of ramen and 18,000 bags of Korean dumplings. A Russian diplomat sold 10,000 ice creams and candies.

Zhou Xuezhi, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that livestreaming can help foreign products open up sales channels in China and trigger a wave of export growth for other countries.

"For foreign countries, it is difficult to fundamentally boost the economy just by exporting featured products to China, but the economic boost must be positive, especially against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic," Zhou told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Tmall is not the first online platform to have diplomats promote their countries' products through livestreaming. 

In April, Consul General of Argentina in Shanghai Pablo Obregón, staged a live-streaming session on Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, where he sold Argentine red shrimp to Chinese internet users. According to Pinduoduo, more diplomats will join livestreaming campaigns in the future.