Before sunrise most mornings, Ivanilda da Veiga is already down at the fishing pier in Praia, loading fresh tuna onto an electric tricycle before steering it toward the city’s markets. The 40-year-old mother of five lost sight in one eye after an accident years ago. About a year back, her husband spent 145,000 Cape Verdean escudos, roughly $1,494, on a Chinese-made three-wheeler to make her daily work manageable again. With no fuel costs to worry about, the vehicle has become what she describes simply as dependable.
She’s far from alone. Across the ten-island archipelago of 520,000 people, sitting some 500 kilometers off Africa’s west coast, Chinese-made cargo tricycles have quietly become a fixture of everyday commerce. Nimble enough to thread through narrow streets in a country where a small, fragmented market rewards exactly that kind of flexibility. Odair, a 35-year-old Praia resident who delivers goods to small grocery stores across the city’s neighborhoods on his own Chinese electric tricycle. He appealed plainly: “The vehicle is much more practical. It can slip into alleys and makes deliveries easier.” The income it generates, he said, lets him feed his whole family.
Trace the tricycles back far enough, and nearly all roads lead to the same place, Fengxian County, in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province. Two decades ago, Fengxian was known mainly for fruit cultivation. Today it commands roughly 60 percent of China’s electric tricycle market. Home to more than 1,400 manufacturers of vehicles and components. A manufacturing cluster, now exporting at considerable pace. Fengxian’s electric tricycle exports reached 390 million yuan in the first five months of 2026 alone, up 99.3 percent year on year.
Meizida, a Fengxian-based manufacturer, offers a case study in how that growth reaches a market as small as Cape Verde’s. The company began selling tricycles there through distributors in 2020. Shipments have since grown from one or two containers a year to around five. With annual sales now exceeding 200 vehicles. “Low costs and versatility are the main reasons African customers choose Chinese electric tricycles,” said Yu Baishun, Meizida’s general manager. He pointed to lower energy costs, fewer breakdowns and easier repairs compared with fuel-powered alternatives. Compared with ordinary motorcycles, he added, the tricycles carry more and handle a wider range of jobs. These include; hauling goods, commuting, even doubling as mobile street stalls. Manufacturers are leaning into that versatility directly, Yu said. Developing customized models fitted with solar charging systems and audio-video entertainment units to suit local tastes and conditions.
Zhao Chen, an industry mentor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, credits China’s uniquely diverse domestic market for the vehicles’ global adaptability. “Nearly every type of global demand for short-distance travel can be met in China, because the domestic market is so diverse and covers almost all application scenarios,” Zhao said. Arguing that China’s complete manufacturing supply chain both lowers costs and drives continued innovation. He also flagged real headwinds ahead: varying regulatory requirements across export markets can trip up smaller manufacturers. And localized operations increasingly demand stronger after-sales service networks than many Chinese firms currently maintain abroad. Even so, industry observers remain broadly optimistic. Reasoning that tightening global energy supplies and rising oil prices should only sharpen the tricycles’ cost advantage over time. Nanjing University business professor Han Jian tied the trend to a larger story about Chinese manufacturing itself. Saying the sector is increasingly demonstrating integrated strength across technology, product design and service delivery.
The tricycles humming through Praia’s streets are a small, street-level expression of a China-Cape Verde relationship approaching its 50th anniversary. Diplomatic ties were established in April 1976, not long after Cape Verde’s independence from Portugal. And have expanded steadily ever since into infrastructure, health, education, agriculture, water resources and cultural exchange. According to Chinese Ambassador to Cabo Verde Zhang Ming. Chinese-built landmarks are now woven into the fabric of the capital including; Praia’s Palace of the Government, the National Assembly and the National Stadium that hosts the country’s beloved Blue Sharks football team. China has also sent medical teams, agricultural experts and engineering technicians to the islands over the decades. And has run close to 200 training programs for Cabo Verdean professionals.
Relations were formally elevated to a strategic partnership in September 2024. China pledged a further $28.5 million in support earlier this year for projects spanning security, renewable energy, tourism and infrastructure. Cabo Verde President José Maria Neves, in a May interview with Xinhua, described China as a consistently important partner in the country’s development. José Maria Neves pointed to the “blue economy”; fisheries, maritime transport, desalination, as the natural next frontier for cooperation. Alongside digital transformation, agriculture and renewable energy. Trade, however, remains heavily lopsided: bilateral trade reached roughly $114 million in 2024, but Cabo Verde’s own exports to China, mostly processed fish and seafood. This represents only a small fraction of that total. A structural imbalance both governments have acknowledged even as they’ve expanded financing and investment cooperation to help diversify the smaller economy’s export base. China’s zero-tariff policy, in effect since May 1 for all 53 African nations with diplomatic ties to Beijing, now applies to Cabo Verdean exports as well. Part of a broader effort to correct that imbalance over time.
For Veiga and Odair, none of that diplomatic architecture is the point of their morning routines. What matters is more immediate: a three-wheeled vehicle from a county in eastern China. That, on the narrow streets of Praia, has quietly become the difference between a hard day’s work and an impossible one.
