Alibaba chief promises 1m jobs for US at meeting with Trump

Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma met US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday and laid out the Chinese ecommerce giant's new plan to bring one million small US businesses onto its platform to sell to Chinese consumers over the next five years, an Alibaba spokesman said.

Alibaba expects the initiative to create one million US jobs as each company adds a position, company spokesman Bob Christie said in a phone call.

Alibaba has previously campaigned to bring more small US businesses onto the company’s sites, but this is the first time Ma has discussed specific targets. Mr Trump and Mr Ma emerged from their meeting at Trump Tower in New York together.

The president-elect told reporters they had a “great meeting” and would do great things together. Mr Ma called Mr Trump “smart” and “open-minded.” Mr Ma said the two mainly discussed supporting small businesses, especially in the midwest, such as farmers and small clothing makers, who could tap the Chinese market directly through Alibaba, whose online shopping platform – Tmall – provides virtual storefronts and payment portals to merchants.

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The company has in recent years been aggressively courting foreign brands to set up Tmall stores to sell to China’s vast and growing middle class by offering to smoothen out Chinese sales, payment and shipping processes.

Admiration

Mr Ma, a Chinese citizen, appears frequently with leaders from the highest echelons of the Communist Party, and both sides have voiced their support and admiration for each other.

Mr Trump often targeted China in the election campaign, blaming Beijing for US job losses and vowing to impose 45 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports. He also promised to call China a currency manipulator on his first day in office.

Alibaba has deep ties with the Chinese government, working closely on some of the country’s core technology development goals including cloud infrastructure and “big data”.

“It’s important, given the anti-China rhetoric that has been coming out, to inoculate the company and himself from that.” said Duncan Clark, chairman of investment advisory firm BDA China and author of a book on Alibaba, of Mr Ma’s meeting with Mr Trump. “There’s nothing to lose in talking about what they’re trying to do here which is stimulate demand in China,” said Mr Clark.

About 7,000 US brands including wholesaler Costco and apparel seller Levi’s currently sit on Alibaba’s Tmall, an Alibaba spokeswoman said. In total they made $15 billion (€14.2 billion) in sales to Chinese consumers last year, she added.

– (Reuters)