Hosts from Xinjiang sell local agriproducts during an e-commerce livestreaming session. [Photo/xjmty.com]

On Aug 13, livestream hosts in Aksu prefecture, located in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, counted down: "3, 2, 1, link up!" — in a snapshot of the region's booming e-commerce sector.

An aid program implemented by Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, has helped Aksu's online retail sales to surge from 400 million yuan ($55.68 million) in 2014 to 4 billion yuan in 2024 — a tenfold increase.

Hangzhou introduced training projects such as the Dandelion Plan and Tianshan Plan. These have connected Aksu's businesses with e-commerce platforms like Alibaba and helped to build incubation bases and industrial parks.

As a result, prosperous farmers-turned-entrepreneurs now sell apples, walnuts and red dates nationwide, some achieving annual sales of over 10 million yuan.

The newly built Aksu E-Commerce Industrial Park houses 82 companies, employs more than 30,000 people and supports deep processing and logistics. In 2024, Aksu's online farm product sales hit 1.8 billion yuan, raising local farmers' incomes by over 2,000 yuan per year.

Attendees of the 2025 Tianshan Plan training session pose for a group photo. [Photo/xjmty.com]