Інтерв'ю з віцепрезидентом Ant International Ши Вень-і: від глобального продажу товарів до транснаціонального бізнесу, виявляються три основні тренди

=== COMPLETE TRANSLATION FIXED ===

21st Century Business Herald reporter Zhou Yanyan

“Not going overseas means being eliminated.” In the past two years, this phrase has become a true reflection of Chinese enterprises.

According to Shi Wenyí, Vice President of Ant International and CEO of Wanlihui, the logic of going abroad has undergone a fundamental change—shifting from simply “selling goods globally” to a deeper level of “transnational operation.”

“Originally, our cross-border trade was ‘goods flying worldwide,’ with people and entities not leaving the country. But today, the situation has changed.” In an interview with 21st Century Business Herald, Shi Wenyí stated that since 2020, Chinese companies’ overseas expansion has entered the “3.0 stage,” characterized by trade digitalization and normalized overseas operations. The “three new things” must be established, gradually achieving a high-quality, comprehensive upgrade from “product going abroad” to “service, digital, and brand going abroad.”

Shi Wenyí leads Wanlihui (WorldFirst), a leading player in cross-border trade payments. Originating in the UK and acquired by Ant Group in 2019, this payment service provider has served over 1.5 million global customers by last year, with a total transaction volume exceeding 500 billion USD. But Wanlihui is just one piece of Ant International’s service for Chinese companies going abroad—Alipay+ connects global mobile payment methods; Antom serves merchants worldwide; Wanlihui provides global account services; Bettr focuses on scenario-based finance. These four brands form a complete cross-border service ecosystem.

Shi Wenyí believes that Wanlihui’s advantage lies in “not fighting alone, but relying on Ant International to integrate multiple capabilities into the global account service system, originating from payments and surpassing payments.”

In Shi Wenyí’s view, the current high-level opening and high-quality overseas opportunities for Chinese enterprises are built on the foundation of three major leaps since the reform and opening-up.

The first leap occurred from 1990 to 2001, when China rapidly integrated into global division of labor, shifting export categories from primary products like agricultural and mineral products to labor-intensive light industry processing exports.

The second leap took place from 2001 to 2020, transforming China from the “world’s factory” into a manufacturing powerhouse, with export categories shifting from processing and assembly to precision manufacturing and brand going abroad.

The third leap has been since 2020, characterized by trade digitalization and normalized overseas operations. The “three new things” must be established, gradually upgrading from “product exports” to “service, digital, and brand exports” with high quality and comprehensive scope.

“Today, besides manufacturing services, the financial services industry is also rapidly digitalizing.” Shi Wenyí said that along with the transformation and upgrading of the real economy, services in trade finance are also digitizing in tandem.

She recalled that in the first stage, traditional banks were indispensable service providers for trade companies going abroad. Their main concern was secure receipt of funds, with export letters of credit, bank guarantees, TT telegraphic transfers being mainstream. In the second stage, companies pursued scale expansion, with export factoring, international forfaiting, and trade financing becoming accelerators for enlarging overseas markets.

“By the third stage, Ant International, including Wanlihui, is involved, especially in helping small and micro Chinese enterprises go abroad.” Shi Wenyí said, “We are actually filling a market gap. Because the surge of small and micro enterprises going abroad is quite vigorous, traditional financial services are still somewhat insufficient. That’s also why our transaction volume hit a new high last year—driven by strong overseas expansion demand.”

When companies truly enter a market and establish operational activities locally, they must face issues of legality and compliance: What are the local tax costs? What are the compliance requirements? What does the ecosystem look like?

“Large enterprises have their own professional teams to handle these issues, but small and micro enterprises often don’t know where to start. So what we do is collaborate with local logistics, operational service partners, and other ecosystem collaborators to help small and micro enterprises solve these problems together.” Shi Wenyí explained that Wanlihui’s “Global Voyage” project provides a collaborative model. Currently, this project has established deep connections with European local e-commerce platforms such as Bol.com, Cdiscount, Allegro, Otto, supporting quick store openings on these platforms and helping Chinese merchants integrate efficiently into local business networks. Meanwhile, cooperation with global platforms like Amazon and Walmart is also strengthening, forming a “global + local” dual-driven model.

“Not all products are suitable for all markets. We act like a ‘matchmaker,’ bringing the most suitable parties together.” Shi Wenyí joked.

Regarding different markets, Shi Wenyí pointed out that many Chinese companies’ first stop for going abroad is Southeast Asia, where the overall consumer market is growing strongly, with robust economic growth, a large young population, high consumer power, cultural similarities, and a sense of closeness.

In the European and American markets, she observes a trend of “the strong get stronger.” “When a small or micro enterprise first starts to go abroad, Europe and America may not be their most proficient markets because competition there is already very fierce. You will see more brand going abroad, meaning companies need to operate locally, including warehousing, after-sales service, etc.”

The African market presents a different picture. “Many people who have no factories in China and have never engaged in manufacturing go to Africa to ‘take risks,’ because they compare China’s past 30 years of manufacturing development and believe they cannot miss the growth of the African market.”

Latin America is mostly seen as a “backup” for the US market—“close to the US, produce locally, and sell to the US.”

Recently, the Middle Eastern market has become relatively complex. “Saudi Arabia has attracted a large number of Chinese infrastructure and manufacturing projects, and Dubai is one of the world’s top three trade ports. Recent US-Iran conflicts have directly affected trade in this region, but in the medium to long term, we are optimistic because the Middle East, as a large market, will not easily give up. The market still has strong purchasing power,” Shi Wenyí said.

Regarding the latest trends in Chinese companies going abroad, Shi Wenyí summarized three key directions.

The first trend is market diversification.

“In the past, many Chinese merchants could do very well just focusing on the US market, but today, more and more are paying attention to and deploying in emerging markets, such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. From our overall perspective, the growth rate of these emerging markets far exceeds that of traditional Europe and America, multiplying several times,” she explained.

The second trend is supply chain diversification.

“After the pandemic, this has become an unavoidable issue for both enterprises and countries.” Shi Wenyí said that manufacturing is shifting from the past single ‘global factory’ model to multiple regional manufacturing centers.

Specifically, several new manufacturing hubs are forming worldwide: in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand are typical first stops for Chinese enterprises; in Europe, Germany and Turkey are also becoming close-to-market bases; in the Americas, Mexico and Brazil are receiving substantial investments from Chinese companies.

“Last year, I visited Africa and was surprised to see so many Chinese enterprises establishing factories—not just traders, but real factories. For example, cement plants, tile factories, plastics, food processing plants, all on a large scale.” Shi Wenyí said, “Many companies I’ve contacted have single investments of hundreds of millions of RMB.”

The third trend is the extension of industry going abroad from manufacturing to services and digital fields.

“Today, when we talk about going abroad, it’s no longer just manufacturing. Increasingly, service industries are also expanding globally. For example, digital entertainment, including gaming and short dramas, is also a form of Chinese cultural export,” she explained.

She highlighted a case of short dramas going abroad. “Last July in London, I was amazed to see how deeply short dramas are being developed. It’s not just about translating Chinese background content; it’s about integrating into each country’s context, producing locally, and distributing to local markets.”

She shared that many companies producing short dramas choose to produce English-language content in the UK. “The UK is Shakespeare’s hometown, with a very mature film and TV industry. Recently, the local market has been relatively sluggish, but Chinese short drama companies have activated the entire market. One of our clients rented a large castle in the UK and shot short dramas using a production style similar to ‘Game of Thrones,’ filming 100 episodes in 15 days, with continuous broadcasting. Many stories are originally from China, but through AI technology, they are adapted into English contexts that local audiences can understand and enjoy. This field is very hot now.”

How does Wanlihui provide differentiated services for Chinese companies of different sizes going abroad?

“Even leading companies have areas that traditional finance cannot cover.” Shi Wenyí said. For example, giants like Huawei and China Mobile do not need Ant International or Wanlihui to handle tax or legal issues, but they have more fragmented needs. “For instance, managing global employee travel—booking flights and hotels—we can solve this with travel cards. It may seem small, but it’s a real pain point for enterprises.”

Similarly, for telecom companies, their settlement with local merchants sometimes cannot be fully covered by traditional methods. “At such times, our global account services, including split billing and global disbursement, come into play—we can cover over 100 countries and more than 100 currencies, which is a key differentiator.”

For top-tier companies like TikTok, Ant International also has its entry points. “Those live streamers across Southeast Asia and Mexico—how to pay them promptly and accurately? We have Southeast Asia’s wallet system, which can handle merchant settlements and influencer disbursements, with API integration for one-click global disbursement.”

Shi Wenyí also mentioned that Ant International’s TST Yingxu AI foreign exchange prediction model has served the aviation sector, helping AirAsia reduce foreign exchange hedging costs by 40%. “This model was originally developed to solve our own problems—selling globally on AliExpress across over 200 markets, where currency fluctuations from 1 yuan to 1.2 yuan in a second had to be managed. Now, the model’s prediction accuracy exceeds 90%, helping companies expand into multiple markets with fewer detours.”

For mid-tier companies, such as a construction firm operating in Africa, a very practical issue is how to operate legally and compliantly locally, including repatriating funds. This is exactly where global account services are “urgent.”

For small and micro enterprises, “this level is actually the simplest—one account, global payments and receipts are enough. Multi-currency, multi-entity needs—one global account can fully cover, no complicated solutions needed.”

“Our logic is layered and industry-specific, each level with its corresponding service approach,” Shi Wenyí summarized.

In the cross-border payment field, what is the relationship between Ant International and traditional banking systems?

“We hold over 100 different licenses worldwide and cooperate with more than 1,400 financial institutions globally.” Shi Wenyí said that in real-time fund management, Ant International has close cooperation with thirteen systemically important banks, including HSBC, Standard Chartered, JPMorgan Chase, and others.

“Now, about 50 countries have achieved local real-time payments, built through our cooperation,” she added. “This is a service model where we, as infrastructure providers, work with global banks using blockchain-based global settlement technology to realize real-time fund arrival and improve turnover efficiency. Meanwhile, we focus on deep localization in core markets—full-stack resources including teams, products, and services; in other markets, we adopt lightweight coverage—building win-win cooperation networks with over 500 local ecosystem partners.”

Shi Wenyí emphasized that Wanlihui’s advantage is “not fighting alone, but relying on Ant International to integrate multiple capabilities into the global account service system, including global collection, global accounts, global payments, AI foreign exchange prediction models, real-time treasury management, covering the entire overseas chain, supporting enterprises’ global operations—originating from payments and surpassing payments.”

“For example, our real-time global treasury management capabilities include over 300 payment tools for acquiring funds, besides card payments, our powerful wallet coverage is industry-leading.” Shi Wenyí said, “Since 2014-2015, we have invested in Southeast Asian wallets, preparing for today. Our Alipay+ merchant service connects over 40 mobile payment methods worldwide, covering more than 100 markets, serving 150 million merchants and 1.8 billion consumer accounts globally.”

Regarding strategies for different markets, Shi Wenyí said, “In markets where we are already rooted, we aim to improve profitability. For new markets still in infrastructure development, we focus on expanding the market. Different stages require different strategies.”