Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has its eyes firmly set on the Australian and New Zealand markets, and has opened its first office in the region in Melbourne.

The Alibaba Group founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, told 300 of the country’s business and political elite at Alibaba’s Australian launch on Saturday that Australia’s clean environment was its next “gold mine”.

“I really admire Australia and New Zealand for protecting the environment,” he said. “This is the most unique asset.”

He said China’s environment had suffered in recent decades. “Through lack of experience, we’ve got a terrible polluted environment and a lot of things we have to import.”

The executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, Russell Zimmerman, told the ABC Alibaba’s launch would add to growing pressures on Australian retailers’ ability to compete.

“They are doing it tough because things like penalty rates, that’s always going to be an issue, whilst we’re paying those penalty rates and whilst retailers have got to compete with overseas retailers sending product in directly,” Zimmerman said.

Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China, used his launch speech to encourage Australian and New Zealand businesses to seek growth abroad.

Ma detailed Alibaba’s rise 18 years ago from 18 people in his apartment, to a global e-commerce giant with hundreds of millions of customers and gross annual sales that hit US$560bn in 2016. Forbes estimates Ma’s worth at $37bn.

The company is an online marketplace, much like eBay but on a much larger scale.

Ma said China presented enormous opportunity, as its economy moved from exporting to importing, with a middle class expected to swell to close to 500m in the next 15 years.

“Domestic consumption will be huge,” he said. “We need high quality products and services that China will not be able to supply alone.”

He said Australia and New Zealand’s “simplicity of life” and respect for culture were its most important assets that China could benefit from.

So far there are over 1,300 Australian brands and 400 New Zealand brands on Alibaba platforms, many of which entered China for the first time through its businesses.

The Alibaba Group also signed a memorandum of understanding with Australia Post to strengthen trade opportunities and announced a $26m scholarship program at the University of Newcastle.

Saturday’s launch was attended by the federal industry minister, Arthur Sinodinos, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, New Zealand’s economic development minister, Simon Bridges, and China’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye.