E-commerce giant Alibaba to promote Argentine food and wine

E-commerce giant Alibaba is partnering with Argentina to bring the South American country's foods and wines to China.

In Argentina's wine region of Mendoza, producers hope that increasing exports can offset poor harvests and local sales declines. And one of the markets they hope to target is China.

In early May, Jack Ma visited Buenos Aires. The founder of Alibaba signed an agreement in which Chinese businesses and consumers can buy Argentine wine and other products online.

The new agreement with China is designed to boost sales of Argentine wine in the coming months.

"It is a market that is growing every year, we hope that by 2020 they will drink three times more wine than now, so it will expand and grow every year,” said Agustin Marolla from Titarelli Wines.

Overseeing this agreement is the agency Invest Argentina. Juan Pablo Tripodi says that while Argentina exports around one billion US dollars' worth of wine yearly, only 20 million US dollars are to China.

Both Alibaba and Argentina hope to implement the new system in time for wine's big days in China, in September and in November.

(CGTN)