Ecommerce giants Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo are leading Chinese internet groups in launching multibillion-dollar initiatives to help traditional exporters switch to domestic sales, as part of a national campaign to cushion the country’s economy from an escalating trade war with the US.

Alibaba has set up a task force to source goods from exporters in more than 10 provinces across China. Taobao and Tmall, its ecommerce marketplaces, have promised to offer higher commissions and better exposure on their platforms to encourage at least 10,000 exporters to sell 100,000 items. Alibaba’s supermarket chain Freshippo also said it had created special “green channels” for export suppliers to sell their products on its shelves.

As well as the cancelling of the “de minimis” duty exemption on small packages worth less than $800, Chinese sellers face tariffs of 125 per cent on many of the goods they have been shipping to the US, making such sales uneconomical.

Li Chengdong, founder of Beijing-based ecommerce consultancy Haitun, said “political” considerations had driven Chinese tech giants to “voluntarily take on social responsibilities”.

Chinese tech groups have been reined in and reminded of their social responsibilities by Beijing since a government crackdown in 2020. President Xi Jinping met leading entrepreneurs in February, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Tencent’s Pony Ma and Meituan’s Wan Xing, in a sign that the sector was back in favour.

Archive link