Cross-border e-commerce has become the latest business trend to sweep the globe and e-commerce giant Alibaba is jumping in with both feet. Alibaba joined hands with the embassies of 26 countries in Beijing on Wednesday to promote the cross-border platform it calls Juhuasuan.

Borders will no longer stop Chinese shoppers from snapping up juicy Australian steaks, Canadian seafood and other sought-over goods from around the world. That's partly thanks to the rise of Alibaba's cross-border Business to Customer e-commerce platform. Alibaba announced the expansion of its platform on Wednesday in Beijing with the cooperation with the embassies of 26 countries. The move came just a week after the Chinese government issued a new guidance to improve growth in the sector and competition is already intense. JD.com launched its own cross-border B to C platform in April, and Amazon has the support of the U.S. embassy as it tries to sell more products in China.

"People here rely a lot more on e-commerce. Good for us to bring sea food. We are the fifth largest food exporter in the world. We want to expand this year to fresh cherries. We hope to export blueberries next year. It'll be especially advantageous for smaller businesses, they don't know where to look for distributors," said Guy Saint-Jacques, Canadian ambassador to China.

Cross-border B to C e-commerce is in its early stage but it's almost certain to increase Chinese imports of foreign products.

"Juhuasua offers good platforms, because it reduces the number of intermediaries. We hope this would lead to a rapid increase in trade," said Guy Saint-Jacques.

How fast is cross-border e-commerce growing? Studies show that China is expected to become the biggest cross-border consumption country by 2020.

A report by Alibaba shows that more than 940 million people will be participating in B to C transactions by 2020, with trade volume expected to reach 1 trillion USD.

The trend goes hand in hand with increasingly close trade ties between China and the rest of the world. And Alibaba's ambitions are big.

"We have 150 million visitors to our platform every day. Today we may only focus on importing, we will make business two ways. As Jack Ma has raised earlier this year about setting up an E-WTO, we will set up a platform for countries to trade with each other, such as selling goods from New Zealand to the US," said Jeff Zhang, president of China Retail Marketplaces, Alibaba Group.

Transferring most international trade online may still seem like a distant dream. But China has already moved to improve its customs system for cross-border e-commerce deals in an attempt to gain a step on the competition.

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