Jack Ma, the founder of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said that he was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s passionate speech on doing business in India and is looking forward to work with the country.
Alibaba is the world’s biggest market place and it recently created history with the world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO). It has a limited presence in India, where the e-commerce space is dominated by homegrown companies such as Flipkart and Snapdeal.
Alibaba’s limited presence in India has not deterred Indian businesses to take to the company’s platform in a big way, Mr. Ma said.
“Indian suppliers are smart and they rank second after Chinese suppliers even though Alibaba’s site has not been designed for Indians,” he said.
More than 400,000 Chinese consumers buy things from India and spices, chocolates and tea from the country have been in great demand in China, he added.
India has more great products they can sell through our platform to China, said Mr. Ma, who is one of the world’s richest billionaires with an estimated wealth of nearly $30 billion.
Stressing on India’s young population, he said that internet is a young business and is a business of young people.
“If China can work with India, both nations can benefit a lot. We will work with Indian entrepreneurs and technologies to improve the relationship of two nations,” he added.
India has the world’s third-largest internet user base, but e-commerce is still relatively underdeveloped. However, things are changing fast and according to consulting firm Technopak, the size of the domestic e-tailing industry is forecast to expand to $32 billion by 2020 from $2.3 billion now.
