Jack Ma wants to help small businessmen in Thailand. (Photo : Getty Images)
Jack Ma and the Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, engaged in talks on how Alibaba can support the Thai small enterprise sector through e-commerce.
The support from Alibaba will be in the form of training of entrepreneurs of small businesses to effectively engage in e-commerce.
"We want to hire at least 30 Thai young people to work at the Alibaba headquarter in Hangzhou for one or two years and send them back, so they understand our system and can support more people here," Ma said.
Ma also thanked the Thai government for making Chinese tourists to easily enter the country, and to transact using online payments.
"We want to make every shop connected with tourists to use mobile payment as this will be more convenient for Chinese tourists, especially the younger generation which has already got accustomed to mobile phone payment developed rapidly in China in recent years," he said.
The deputy prime minister said that Alibaba's target is to support the small to medium enterprises (SMEs) as it composes 90 percent of the Thai market.
Aside from giving assistance to businesses, the Alibaba CEO said that he is also willing to help the Thai government build an electronic payment system for government in its drive to cut corruption.
Ma emphasized, "We can expect an e-payment society without cash in the future and e-payment will make our society very transparent as all data will be recorded by machines."
Alibaba, through its online payment system, Alipay, is the widest and most subscribed e-commerce platform in China. Jack Ma has been looking for a larger market base outside the country.
He reiterated that the company's goal is to create 100 million jobs across the world in 20 years.
