The logo of Alibaba Group is seen during Alibaba Group's 11.11 Singles Day global shopping festival at the company's headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, Nov 10, 2019. [Photo/Agencies]

The engagement of Chinese companies, such as the Alibaba Group, in electronic trade has rekindled sales for African businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior United Nations official said on May 15.

The Chinese engagement has in particular boosted the sales and trading of Africa's major economic commodities such as coffee, which lay fallow hitherto in storehouses for months due to freighting stand-stills caused by the COVID-19 global lockdown, Vera Songwe, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said on Friday.

"COVID-19 is particularly endangering global trade. That is why I am very happy to be part of this Electronic World Trading Platform (eWTP) initiative with the Alibaba business group," the ECA chief said.

"Africa, which has already been trading with China, can improve trading at this time based on a number of goods on which it possesses comparative advantage," Songwe added.

"Rwanda is already trading its Rwandan chili and coffee. We hope that with the eWTP, we can put more goods from the continent notably, coffee from Ethiopia, shea butter from Mali, white pepper from Cameroon, vanilla from the Comoros Islands and saffron from Madagascar, among others, on the platform," Songwe added. "This is what happened during a livestream coordinated by the Alibaba Group to position small-scale world brands on the eWTP, an initiative which facilitates business-to-consumer (B2C) sales."

The cash-in is explained in terms of the wide access to customers especially in China via the eWTP whose huge demand, in terms of economies of scale, would now lower overall freighting costs for the supplies, according to the ECA.

The ECA chief, who addressed participants of the livestream from the ECA headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, said on Friday the ECA is taking action to getting "many more small brands from Africa with distinct products to access the platform and make sales during and after the current health crisis."

The UN ECA is helping to bring unique African products and their promoters to the platform in a practical COVID-19 response move.

The Rwandan coffee brand, known as Gorilla's Coffee, is one of the beneficiaries of its engagement with the Chinese Alibaba Group, through the eWTP.

David Ngarabe, CEO of the Gorilla's Coffee, who witnessed the sale of 3,000 bags of coffee with the help of a livestream session on April 14 that was coordinated by the Alibaba under the eWTP platform rejoiced at the feat following months of slack business as the COVID-19 lockdowns ruptured the supply chains especially to cafes and hotels.