China tech groups lead multibillion-dollar campaign to help exporters sell at home

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Chinese business & finance myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

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. 

Pinduoduo had earlier responded to sellers on its international arm Temu being hit by the ending on May 2 of “de minimis” duty exemptions on packages to the US. It promised to invest Rmb100bn ($13.7bn) to help its merchants “pivot and upgrade”. 

“We are determined to shoulder the costs and risks . . . and to navigate the uncertainties in the external market environment,” Pinduoduo’s co-chief executive Zhao Jiazhen said. “We’ll prioritise ensuring the stable development and healthy profits of small and medium-sized manufacturers.”

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.

Elsewhere, online retail platform JD.com has announced a Rmb200bn fund to procure products from local exporters over the next year, with WeChat owner Tencent, delivery service Meituan and ByteDance, owner of the TikTok and Douyin short video apps, also launching similar programmes. 

Search engine group Baidu said it would allow 1mn companies to advertise products in its livestreams with the help of its AI-generated “virtual humans” for free. Ride-hailing app DiDi planned to invest Rmb2bn to “stabilise employment and boost consumption” as well as support domestic manufacturers to “go global”, it said. 

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

“A sense of anti-US unity has prompted each Chinese company to do whatever it is capable of,” said Li. “Stepping in at this critical juncture also brings them reputational benefits.” 

Li pointed out that no official intervention is necessary, as companies’ “political sensitivity” is strong enough to guide such decisions. 

“Consumers are also keeping a close eye on these [tech giants],” he added. “They must pay attention to public opinions and make shrewd commercial choices.”

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. 

Amid a sluggish economy and Trump’s punitive tariffs, the Chinese government has intensified its own efforts to counter looming disruption. The commerce ministry recently held talks with trade associations, supermarket chains and distributors on how to help exporters explore domestic sales channels. In a meeting in Beijing attended by vice minister Sheng Qiuping on Friday, the ministry promised to help domestic businesses cope with the “external shock”.

There has also been evidence of patriotic buying by Chinese consumers and organised support for the country’s stock markets from a “national team” of state-owned funds investing and companies buying back shares.