Alibaba Group Holding’s logistics arm, Cainiao, has expanded its parcel delivery service to eight African countries—with plans to further expand by the end of December—as it races to give Chinese e-commerce merchants a cheaper, more reliable way to reach the fast-growing continent’s markets.
China’s economy is not in good shape, and exports to developed nations, in particular the US, are no longer a guarantee given recent trade tensions, so finding markets elsewhere to sell products is important. There are 1.5 billion people across Africa’s 54 countries, and China’s efforts to expand its reach there, and across the Global South, seem to be bearing fruit.
It will take time for markets such as these to reach meaningful levels of economic impact on China’s trade numbers, but it is part of the great game of empires. The Cainiao expansion is just a small move, but the general impression it gives, along with BRI investment and other Chinese companies’ decisions to increase exposure to Africa, suggests that China is moving faster than the US and Europe, and in a way that could well pay dividends in the future.