Jack Ma to meet DOF, Bangko Sentral on policing e-commerce

Officials of the Department of Finance (DOF) and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will meet Chinese billionaire Jack Ma next year on how to refine e-commerce regulation.

"We are planning to visit him. He invited us to have further discussions in China. We will visit him probably in January with central bank. We'll review the regulatory environment here so that we don’t have regulations that choke the growth of e-commerce,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said in a statement on Thursday.

“We must look at our (financial) regulations and ensure that it will not stymie the growth of our MSMEs,” Dominguez added.
 
During his visit to the Philippines in late October, Ma met with Dominguez in Malacañang and discussed ways on how to empower micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through affordable e-commerce innovations which was pioneered by the Chinese businessman on his internet-based selling platform Alibaba.
 
In their meeting, the Finance chief thanked Ma for acting swiftly last March on the Philippine government’s request to take down advertisements of digitally printed fake cigarette tax stamps on Alibaba.com and AliExpress sites.
 
The request was in line with the DOF campaign against the proliferation of counterfeit cigarette tax stamps and illicitly traded tobacco products in the Philippine market.
 
The DOF said Ma told Dominguez that he wants to help develop the digital market in the Philippines, spur a cashless society, and connect the country’s e-commerce markets to other markets in Europe, China, and other countries across the globe.

Ma said he wants to assist developing countries like the Philippines build their digital technologies so that even small enterprises can benefit from globalization.
 
He told Dominguez that he intends to invest in the Philippines in the next five years, most likely in the country’s service industry.

"The Philippines has the best service and has the heart to become key players in the industry,” Ma said.
 
The e-commerce innovations pioneered by Ma, are now being explored by the DOF in relation to building a logistics backbone for MSMEs in the Philippines, to help prepare and empower the sector for the e-commerce revolution, Dominguez noted.
 
“Ma told us about the power of e-commerce. Today’s millennials are more comfortable doing digital transactions rather than physical transactions. He said that this is the way to the future," Dominguez said.

"The whole point of the matter is, if you have a digital platform like that, you develop a lot of information that you can use in giving loans, and even in providing security information to the police,” Dominguez added. — Ted Cordero/VDS, GMA News