Rise in online trade with Africa benefits consumers

Farmers pick tea leaves at a tea plantation in Kericho, Kenya, in August 2021. [Photo/Agencies]

Ethiopian coffee, Kenyan black tea, Tanzanian cashew nuts, chili sauce from Rwanda and chocolate from Ghana — these are among the affordable products from Africa offered to Chinese consumers, who are embracing cross-border online shopping for high-quality, imported and foreign-brand items.

Chinese online retailers are ramping up efforts to expand their footprint in African nations, helping local farmers sell their specialties by leveraging new technologies such as livestreaming and providing related cross-border e-commerce training courses. It's part of a broader push to bolster Sino-African economic and trade cooperation.

In February, the Rwanda Development Board and Alibaba.com, Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group's business-to-business platform, signed a new e-commerce agreement, saying that an initial group of 20 Rwandan small and medium-sized enterprises will sell their products through Alibaba.com as a way to start their digitalized operations.

Alibaba.com will provide comprehensive e-commerce operational guidance and a full range of support services for the Rwandan SMEs, such as web design, training and counseling, to help them establish online stores, select suitable products and optimize store operations, the company said.

"This partnership will not only help Rwandan enterprises improve the sales and exports of their products, but also facilitate their digital transformation," said Zhang Entao, deputy general manager of the global supplier development department at Alibaba.com.

In 2018, Rwanda agreed to work with Alibaba through the electronic World Trade Platform initiative to export local specialties. The concept of eWTP was proposed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma to connect worldwide SMEs through e-commerce, technology and streamlined administrative procedures. Rwanda is the first African nation to sign an eWTP deal with Alibaba.

Rwanda's spicy chili sauce has been listed on Alibaba's fresh food chain Freshippo. Rwandan coffee has also landed on Tmall Global, Alibaba's cross-border e-commerce site.

"E-commerce has brought more and more African goods to Chinese families," said James Kimonyo, Rwandan ambassador to China.

There are many local specialties in Rwanda, such as avocado oil, that will be popular with Chinese consumers, he said. Kimonyo has taken part in quite a few livestreaming sessions to promote his nation's products to Chinese consumers.

In order to satisfy Chinese consumers' rising demand for high-quality products made in Africa, JD Super, the online supermarket arm of Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com, has opened online national pavilions covering a wide range of commodities from Tanzania and South Africa.

Currently, JD Super has introduced nearly 200 specialties from African countries, such as South African wine, abalone and rooibos tea, an infusion made from a native herb. Nuts, fresh oysters and frozen seafood from South Africa are also expected to be available in China in the near future, the company said.

China's cross-border e-commerce sector has been growing exponentially over the past few years as the country's middle- and high-income shoppers demand increasingly diversified and personalized products and services, experts said.

The nation's cross-border e-commerce reached 2.11 trillion yuan ($300.2 billion) in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 9.8 percent, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Unlike Europe and the United States, where the reach for online shopping is relatively high, Africa has enormous growth potential in the cross-border e-commerce sector, said Zhang Zhouping, a senior analyst of business-to-business and cross-border activities at the Internet Economy Institute, a domestic consultancy.

"As a new form of foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce has witnessed rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and become a new engine of the country's foreign trade development," Zhang said. He emphasized that digital trade is expected to play a bigger role in promoting economic and trade cooperation between China and Africa, and empower the development of the real economy.

Visitors gather at the booth of Alibaba.com during a cross-border e-commerce expo in Fuzhou, Fujian province, in March. [LYU MING/CHINA NEWS SERVICE]

According to a report from the JD Consumption and Industry Development Research Institute, Chinese consumers are increasingly demanding diversified and high-end consumer goods, with their expenditure on imported products being a significant driver in that area. JD has procured more than 500 billion yuan in imported products over the past three years, the company said.

"Chinese e-commerce platforms are accelerating their presence in overseas markets to seek new sources of revenue, as growth in the domestic e-commerce sector is slowing," said Chen Tao, a Beijing-based analyst at internet consultancy Analysys. He said Chinese enterprises should step up localization efforts in overseas markets and comply with local laws and regulations to ensure they become reputed brands overseas.

Zhang Tianbing, head of Deloitte Asia-Pacific consumer products and retail industry, said, "With the expansion of domestic demand and advances in emerging retail technologies, China has introduced preferential policies, such as lowering import taxes and expanding the range of goods allowed to be imported."

The boom in celebrity livestreaming has also spurred cross-border e-commerce purchases by domestic consumers, Zhang said, adding that overseas brands are moving to cross-border platforms as they expand their distribution channels in light of COVID-19 disruptions to offline retail.