The US ranks first in active users and turnover growth among all countries on alibaba.com according to recent data provided by the platform. This shows the reliance of US industries on Chinese supplies despite the lingering political uncertainty between the world’s two largest economies.
US consumers constituted the largest group of active buyers on alibaba.com in March with a growth of 91 percent year-on-year. It is followed by the UK, Canada, Australia and Brazil according to data from the platform.
US buyers also recorded the fastest growth in trade turnover with Chinese manufacturers during alibaba.com’s March Expo 2021, the platform’s largest annual online trade event. In total, Alibaba’s trade turnover rose by 129 percent year-on-year during the expo.
Chinese clothes, digital products and cosmetics have been among the hottest items with the highest demand by US companies, the data showed.
This shows that US companies, particularly medium and small-sized businesses are pragmatic. Their demand for Chinese products has not been blocked by the Trump administration’s provocations of a trade war or their accusations against China on the origins of the pandemic, according to alibaba.com’s General Manager Zhang Kuo.
“Neither a hike in the importing tariffs nor the news against China would influence US companies’ business strategies as they still look for cost efficiency, convenience in terms of trade and stable services as the deciding factor in their business cooperation,” Zhang told the Global Times on Thursday.
He also noted that according to surveys made with US small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Chinese suppliers continue to be on their top priority for the quality or variety of their supply chain.
Zhang also noted that the surge of US orders for Chinese supplies has been triggered by the country’s massive rescue packages after the pandemic, as well as the fact that more and more US companies have participated in overseas trade because of the pandemic.
“With repeated stimulus plans that allow overseas families to get subsidies from the government, their purchase power has not fallen sharply amid the pandemic. When they have the need to shop there are not many regions apart from China that can satisfy their needs,” according to Zhang.
He also noted that US companies that used to rely on local distributors have started to do direct business with end suppliers, many of which are Chinese factories, on the Internet during the pandemic. This has caused US SMEs to growth at a very fast speed during the pandemic period.
Alibaba.com has also rolled out special services to respond to the China-US trade boom. The company has now normalized chartered air freight services between China and the US established in March with one daily flight from China to the US to deliver products.
Xu Xinyuan, General Manager of fabrics producer, Huasheng Shuanglang Beijing Textile Co, also told the Global Times that she saw a growth of US orders after the pandemic hit.
“This year, a lot of orders from US clients have resumed or even surpassed the level in 2019 as many US brands had a strong business rebound after a year of being shut down,” Xu said, adding that some of her clients, who also supply the US market, told her that they are worrying about whether they can complete the orders from US clients with the sudden sales surge on the amazon.com.
File Photo: CFP
