Thai orchid joins hands with Chinese Ali-auction

More and more Thai orchids will soon appear at beautify weddings, conferences and restaurants in China after the Thai Orchid Exporter Association joined hands with Ali-Auction, an online auction platform under Alibaba Group on July 12, to promote export of the world-renowned flowers through e-commerce.

Ms. Nitivadee Manitkul, Consul-General of Thailand in Kunming, said that the cooperation could expand Thai orchid growers’ reach to potential customers in Yunnan and the rest of China and could also help to improve orchid quality in Thailand.

Thailand is currently the world’s number one orchid exporter, with an annual output of 23,700 tons which is valued at around US $74,000,000.
Data shows that China is the biggest market for Thai orchid in 2018, taking up 40% of the Thai orchid exporting. Last year, the sale volume of Thai orchid to Yunnan reached US$ 15 million.

China is an important market. The value of  online flowers trading in the country amounted to 36 billion yuan in 2018, with the value expected to increase by 70 per cent in 2019.

Natchathorn Manopanjasiri，commercial counselor at the Royal Thai Consulate General in Kunming, said that consumers can buy Thai orchid through the expo as well as the Ali-auction, taobao,Youzan and others.

With the fame of the on-going Kunming International Flowers Expo, she believes Thai orchid will impress more consumers.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the collaboration was signed on December 13, 2018. The online flower sales were launched during the expo.

By Doris Liu