BEIJING: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak commenced his working visit to China today with a tour of China e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province - 180km southwest of Shanghai - on the invitation of its founder and executive chairman Jack Ma.
Najib, his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, and members of his delegation were given a personal tour of the sprawling complex by Ma, who is also the digital economy adviser to the Malaysian government.
Alibaba, the world's largest collection of e-commerce websites, is headquartered in Ma's hometown. The former teacher started the company from his Hangzhou apartment at Wen Yi West Road in 1999 and led it to the biggest-ever initial public offering in 2014.
The prime minister had said yesterday that he wanted to see for himself the success of Alibaba which has created more than 36,000 job opportunities and changed the industrial ecosystem in China into one which is more dynamic and inclusive.
In his Facebook post, Najib said he was impressed with Alibaba's achievements.
"They saw the future and were fast in embracing the new way to trade in this 21st century. In just 13 years, their transactions have reached 3 trillion yuan or close to RM1.9 trillion.
"During the Global Shopping Festival last year, Alibaba processed a peak of 175,000 orders per second."
He said Malaysia could definitely learn from this.
"I am confident that our newly launched Digital Free Trade Zone will be the new hub of digital economy with more people, especially Malaysians both in rural and urban areas, benefiting from it."