DOF, BSP officials to attend Alibaba Biz School lectures

Finance officials are meeting Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma in Hangzhou, China on Thursday to explore innovations in digital commerce that will help fuel growth of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines for foster financial inclusion.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III is leading a delegation of finance and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)officials to visit the Alibaba Business School, an institution focusing on implementing Alibaba Group’s e-commerce training system, the Department of Finance said Monday.

They are taking part in a lecture series from January 31 to February 2 to gain a wider understanding of ecommerce ecosystems, including digital technologies that can be employed to improve the nascent online payments system in the Philippines.

“We will look at the financial regulations in China and explore how we can tap digital technologies to empower our MSMEs, 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.

According to the Alibaba Business School, the three-day New Economy Workshop organized by Alibaba and tailor-fit to the Philippine setting “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, logistics, e-commerce and big data industries.”

Dominguez and Ma met briefly last November in Manila when the Chinese billionaire paid President Duterte a courtesy call in Malacañang. Ma invited Dominguez to visit China for more extensive discussions on how to ensure an “enabling financial regulatory environment” for e-commerce growth in the Philippines, with MSMEs as the primary beneficiaries.

Located next to the Alibaba head office in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province in east China, the Alibaba Business School was established by the Hangzhou Normal University of China and Alibaba Group in October 2008.

It focuses on enabling the growth of small and medium enterprises via comprehensive learning opportunities in the digital economy. — VDS, GMA News