Dominguez leads Phl team to exclusive Alibaba forum

A delegation of finance and central bank officials from the Philippines is set to meet Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma in Hangzhou, China on Feb. 1 to discuss digital innovations that can help empower micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.

The team, led by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, will also visit the Alibaba Business School and take part in a lecture series from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 to gain better understanding of the electronic commerce ecosystem.

“We will look at the financial regulations in China and explore how we can tap digital technologies to empower our MSME, especially those in the countryside, the same way that Jack Ma did to help small enterprises in China gain a foothold in the global e-commerce industry,” Dominguez said in a statement.

The Alibaba Business School was jointly established by the Hangzhou Normal University of China and the Alibaba Group in October 2008 to serve as an institution which focuses on implementing the Alibaba Group’s e-commerce training system. Its key focus is to enable the growth of the MSME sector through the provision of trainings about digital economy.

According to the Alibaba Business School, the three-day New Economy workshop to be attended by Philippine officials was tailor-made to the Philippine setting.

“It will incorporate firsthand experience with real-life e-commerce applications in an effort to provide a framework for creating a regulatory environment that encourages growth across the fintech (financial technology), logistics, e-commerce and big data industries,” the school said.

The workshop includes topics on e-commerce development in China, inclusive finance through digital technologies; rural e-commerce development and smart logistics in the digital economy.

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, will also include a lecture on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for smart traffic management, which it said could become a tool to help ease congestion in Metro Manila.

Among the speakers who will deliver the lectures include Xiaobo Wu, an economist and former dean of the Zheijiang University School of Management; Long Chen, the chief strategy officer of the Ant Financial Group, the operator of Alipay; Bill Wang, head of the All-Countryside Business Unit and vice president of the Alibaba Group; Wanli Min, senior director of Alibaba Cloud; Bhushan Patil, president of the India-based e-tailer Paytm; and Guan Xiaodong, head of Cainiao Network International Business.

Ma and Dominguez had met last November in Manila during the tycoon’s courtesy visit to President Duterte.

Ma had invited Dominguez to visit China and hold more extensive discussions on how to ensure an enabling financial regulatory environment for ecommerce in the country.