Alibaba Group executive chairman Jack Ma said today that he has confidence in Malaysia-China bilateral trade partnership despite Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s decision to review some of the republic’s projects here. — Picture by Hari Anggara

KUALA LUMPUR, June 18 — Alibaba Group executive chairman Jack Ma said today, that he has confidence in the Malaysia-China bilateral trade partnership, despite Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s decision to review some of the republic’s projects here.

He said such reviews were good and necessary to rectify problems.

“Before I came here, people said a lot of words about China-Malaysia relationship and the business community, and I said, just like 20 years ago, many people worried about the internet. Many people worried about this, worried about that. I think worrying never solves problems.

“I’m very confident in Malaysia, I’m very confident in China. I’m very confident in Malaysia-China relationship, and very confident in the China business community.

“People say there are going to be reviews. So what? We, our company, has reviews every quarter. We do reviews all the time to check what is right, what is wrong. But as long as we believe in the future, as long as we believe in the partnership, as long as we believe that we could work together to solve our problems,” Ma said, in his speech at opening of his company’s new office here.

Ma also expressed confidence that Putrajaya would continue its policy to being open to foreign investments.

Earlier in the morning, after his meeting with Dr Mahathir, Ma said Dr Mahathir hoped that the company would hire more Malaysians for high-technology jobs.

“He [Mahathir] does not want Malaysia to be a low-end manufacturing [base] like an outsourced assembly line,” Alibaba-owned South China Morning Post (SCMP) quoted him saying.

“He wants to have research centres, creative centres and this is what we believe.

“We think globalisation in the next 30 years is about enabling, it is not about selling,” Ma reportedly said.

SCMP also reported Dr Mahathir as saying in an interview that Ma had told him that Alibaba wanted to help Malaysia with efforts to introduce technology to its schools and assist local businesses in areas like cloud computing.

Recently, China’s Global Times, a state-run tabloid, warned Dr Mahathir that if his decision to review some projects had damaged the interests of Chinese companies, they had the right to seek compensation, AFP reported.

“The Chinese government will also take concrete measures to safeguard the interests and rights of Chinese enterprises,” the editorial said.

Dr Mahathir revived his ‘Look East Policy’, with a keen focus on Japan, admitting that he had always admired the country’s culture for discipline.

At a press conference with the Japan National Press Club during his first work trip to Tokyo this month, Dr Mahathir said that his administration would be “friendly’ with China, but does not want to be “indebted” to the republic.