A small bamboo cane was turned into a piece of exquisite handicraft after being crossed, pressed and twined in the hands of Huang Binjing, a villager from Bobai county in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. And now, with the aid of Internet, Huang's work has found an international audience. "I have never been abroad, but my handmade articles have been going global," she said.

Currently, Bobai's bamboo-weaving products, recognized as an intangible cultural heritage, have been sold to about 60 countries and regions, including the U.S., Germany and Singapore. This success comes about from the support of digital foreign trade service platforms.

Huang Lianjiang is a general manager of Guangxi Bobai Huangtu Arts & Crafts Co., Ltd. In 2016, he decided to promote his bamboo-weaving products globally. The challenges he faced were twofold. He had neither a good command of English, nor a channel for marketing overseas. After researching his predicament, Huang found access to Alibaba's B2B digital foreign trade service platform, known as Alibaba International Station (AIS). With the help of the instant translation system developed by this platform, Huang could communicate smoothly with international customers.

Moreover, a data analysis function embedded in AIS can analyze foreign trade data to help merchants accurately tap overseas demand, and provide them with intelligent decision-making services. The platform also regularly updates new business trends and practices, along with emerging technologies to keep merchants up to date.

Another B2C cross-border e-commerce platform, called AliExpress, has organized domestic wig manufacturers to establish production workshops to provide jobs for communities in economically underdeveloped regions. This has expanded the employment opportunities for women and increased their income.

As of March 31, 2023, the wig production workshop had covered four key regions, including Zhangbei in Hebei province, Ping'an district in Qinghai province, and the counties of Yijun and Qingjian in Shaanxi province. More than 460 female workers have been recruited and trained to master the skills of wig-making. Their hand-made products are being sold overseas with the help of digital foreign trade service platforms.

In addition, in order to realize the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, some countries and regions have set requirements for imported products on the carbon footprint. To clear the way for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to open the global market, a cloud service provider developed an energy consumption and carbon management platform, to help MSMEs gain a competitive edge for their businesses in carbon efficiency. This has helped increase the carbon footprint calculation efficiency by 80 percent per product. Now, the business service has extended to more than 2,000 enterprises across the world.

A representative in charge of AIS said that its digital foreign trade service platform is trying to use new technology to create new business models, striving to grow all MSMEs into multinational companies.