Chinese e-commerce payment platform to make Kenyan market entry

NAIROBI — Chinese electronic payment platform Alipay plans to enter the Kenyan market as an indigenous company, where it would create a payment platform for companies operating in the East African region's largest economy, the company's founder Jack Ma said on Thursday.

Ma, the founder of the world's largest e-commerce trading platform, Alibaba, is visiting Kenya in a tour arranged by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), to promote global entrepreneurship and to mentor young and upcoming entrepreneurs.

"We would enable you to buy and sell. We want to enable every business to trade globally. Alipay is definitely interested. We would give money to a Kenyan company to start this business, not Alipay. We are here looking for people. We are also talking to payment companies," Ma said during a public lecture at the University of Nairobi.

The lecture, attended by the Kenyan minister of information and Communication Joe Mucheru and UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi, explored e-commerce and entrepreneurship skills.

In his public lecture, the Chinese business magnet and thought-process leader, urged innovators and entrepreneurs to embrace failure and lack of success as a positive business spirit.

"Do not be afraid to fail. Get used to failure," he said, describing the historic entry of his online commerce site Alibaba's foray and the initial failures that it encountered before it grew to a massive $556 billion business empire which currently employs 56,000 people.

Ma said his business has created 33 million jobs in China and is currently capable of undertaking massive logistical operations, delivering 65 million packages all over China.

Talking about the possibility to grow the online business distribution, Ma said he believed 90 percent of businesses around the world were likely to be online.

The Chinese businessman known and respected globally for his innovative business solutions, said he saw a great future in Africa and urged both political and business leaders in the continent to embrace innovation.

Insisting the growth of technology in this era was the third phase of a global business development cycle, Ma said the new phase of technology development, driven by intelligence systems, would require the development of brains and innovations where innovation would replace human beings.

"We will make machines like people. The world faces challenges. Great jobs will disappear. This is the challenge. Change is the best opportunity and people complaining is the best opportunity for people to develop products and solutions to address the complaints using the internet," Ma told the audience.