China’s “Double 11” online shopping festival is one that can really create miracles. The sales of agricultural products on Tmall, the online shopping platform under e-commerce giant Alibaba exceeded 7 billion yuan ($1 billion) in just 22 hours on Nov. 11.

(Photo/Xinhua)

“I’m happy to see this because every year’s online shopping festival presents an test for Alibaba’s managing teams, and the performance figures indicate that we are on the right path,” said Dai Shan, president of Alibaba's wholesale marketplaces division.

Dai believes that digital development has become a new production force of agriculture. Promoting the development of digital economy, Alibaba is assisting the construction of China’s agricultural infrastructure, building a state of the art engine for China’s new countryside and new agricultural industry.

According to her, Alibaba has launched over 1,000 digital agricultural centers across the country, introducing the company’s cloud brain to every process of planting. Besides, Alibaba has also built over 1,000 facilitation channels for agricultural products so they can be transferred to the sales end in a rapid manner.

The rural credit system established by the e-commerce giant has enabled the distribution of 816.9 billion yuan worth of loans to farmers, rural areas, and the agricultural industry, Dai introduced.

“It’s not easy to run the agricultural business, and it’s not possible to yield fruitful results in just one or two years,” Dai noted, adding that they will continue building the industry vigorously.