The foot-hold of Rwanda’s coffee in China is expected to grow even more as one Chinese investor looks to open coffee shops in his city, serving exclusively Rwandan coffee.

Anthony Chen, 27, a businessman from Hangzhou has recently opened business dealings with Rwandan coffee producers, and in August this year, he imported up to 5,000 kilograms of Gorilla Coffee Beans which he rebranded into various products for his country’s market.

Speaking to Doing Business last week, Chen said he is looking to do more business in this kind, promoting Rwanda’s coffee further and showcase its quality to the Chinese consumers, in the country that has many international coffee brands competing for clientele.

For starters, the coffee market in China is a very competitive one. Given the country’s huge population of over a billion people, a number of local and multinational coffee companies are operating there serving a largely youthful market who have adopted a coffee drinking culture.

With companies ranging from home-grown coffee shops to big Western coffee businesses such as USA’s Starbucks, UK’s Costa Coffee, Canada’s Tim Horton’s, among others; the Asian country seems a good place for the industry.

The opportunity is also dependent on sufficient, timely and credible awareness about Rwandan coffee as well as reliable delivery avenues and mechanisms.

He highlighted that there is competition on the Chinese market due to various products that come from countries like Colombia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Admitting that Rwandan Coffee is not as known as the other countries’ products, Chen sees this as an opportunity with quality being the main selling point.

"We want the Chinese people to know Rwanda has good quality coffee,” he said.

The coffee shops Chen hopes to open will be located in his home city of Hangzhou, and he expects to do this starting December.

The Hangzhou City is home to the headquarters of mega Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba, and it is estimated to be one of the cities that have adopted cashless payment systems in the country.

A large number of transactions there are done digitally with Chen planning to use technology to promote and advertise his coffee business endeavors.

"I want to build a brand. We want people to know this product is from Rwanda and it is a good one,” he said.

He told Doing Business that he also hopes to invest in importing more Rwandan products like macadamia nuts and chili oil which also have a market in the Asian nation.

Rwanda’s agricultural products have been getting better access to the Chinese market, particularly the ecommerce market, due to deals like the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) that was signed between Alibaba and Rwanda, allowing Rwanda’s products access to the Chinese ecommerce market.

According to data from Alibaba, Rwanda’s exportation through the ecommerce company’s platforms increased by 124% in 2019.

James Kimonyo Rwanda’s ambassador to China said the eWTP partnership has assisted in increasing sales of Rwandan products on the Chinese market, and hopes more will be done in this direction.

"We have been using e-commerce and livestreaming to reach as many consumers as possible. Because Rwandan products, including coffee and chili are becoming well-known to Chinese consumers, we are seeing Chinese entrepreneurs who are looking for ways to be involved, they know the market, they know the behavior of consumers, we hope they can do better and buy more coffee and chili from Rwanda, so we are very excited about this kind of new partnership,” he said.

The developed could enable recovery of coffee exports which dropped in the previous fiscal year.

 Rwanda’s green coffee export was 19,723 tonnes during last Fiscal Year (2019/2020), and generated $60.4 million (about Rwf57 billion), according to figures from the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB).

The statistics indicate that the country’s coffee export volume reduced by 6 per cent, while revenues went down by over 11 per cent, or $7.6 million (about Rwf7 billion). 

The coffee export performance of the financial year which ended in June 2020 was short of the country’s target to generate $80 million from exporting 26,000 tonnes (in the 2019/2020 fiscal year). 

NAEB said that the coffee export revenue drop in 2019/2020 was largely attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic that disrupted the demand for the commodity.