In an exclusive interview with Thailand’s leading English-language daily, The Nation, Ma said he was impressed by Malaysia’s strength, tenacity and speed in implementing digital projects.
“Honestly, we were shocked by Malaysia’s speed. I thought it was impossible for Malaysia but they came through,” he was quoted as saying.
Comparing the way things are done in Malaysia, Ma said Thailand needed a lot of improvement when it comes to implementing digital projects.
Ma, who is Asia’s richest person, made special mention of the personal attention by Prime Minister Najib Razak in pushing for the digital projects to be implemented, by visiting Ma at the Alibaba Group headquarters.
“The prime minister said, in three months, we will make this thing happen,” Ma said of the meeting which took place last November as part of Najib’s official trip to China.
“We thought it was almost impossible to make that happen in three months. It was a huge project, but they made it on time. They set up a great, strong team to follow up on the project.
“They opened up a customs office, inspection offices and made available the land that was required,” he told The Nation.
This is not the first time Ma had praised Malaysia for its speed in implementing the digital projects here.
On March 22, following the launch of the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ), an e-hub jointly established by Alibaba Group and Malaysia Digital Economy Corp, Ma said it took only 10 minutes for him and Najib to agree on introducing the DFTZ when they met in China in November last year.
“My team and I thought, is four months possible? We have been discussing it with many European and Asean countries. But Malaysia is very business-friendly and much more efficient than I thought,” Ma was reported to have said.
Ma was also appointed as the Malaysian government’s digital economy adviser in March.
With the digital projects implemented in Malaysia, it made the country Alibaba’s first e-WTP (World Trade Platform) hub in the region.
In addition to Malaysia, Ma also cited Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia as Asian countries on his group’s special attention list to become e-WTP centres.
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