China’s Richest Man, Jack Ma To Assist Nigerian Entrepreneurs

Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba group Jack Ma, has on Thursday pledged commitment to assist the federal government in its bid to make Nigeria an investment hub in Africa.

He expressed this during a visit to the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, at the state house, Abuja.

Jack Ma’s visit was however accompanied by Chinese delegation including investors including MD Yu Feng Capital, Mr Yu Feng.

Osinbajo at the meeting in the state house with the business mogul assured the Chinese delegation of federal government support to businesses willing to invest in the Nigerian economy.

“If there is anything you have achieved, for the politician, we say you have democratised business.

“It is a great achievement and I think it is something we will like to learn from and benefit from ,especially as we open up government businesses and transactions and make them more efficient for the use of our people.

“This is an exciting time for us and we are very happy that you are here and a lot of businesses and entrepreneurs are looking forward to your interacting with them later today.

“I think you will find a very energetic, very creative group of young men and women and old men and women who are increasingly getting interested in entrepreneurship ,especially digital entrepreneurship and I am happy to see that you have a good group of businesses from China.

“I hope it will create an opportunity to start investigating business opportunities in Nigeria and I really hope that we will be able to do something and create some opportunities here.” he said.

Responding to Vice President Osinbajo, Jack Ma explained that he is in the country to honour the VP’s invitation earlier in Davos, Switzerland.

 He expressed desire to assist entrepreneurs in Africa and Nigeria in particular.

He disclosed that he is pursuing a programme which he tagged “Four Es” -E-infrastructure, Entrepreneurship, E-government and Education.

We hope to support e-entrepreneurs; we want to make entrepreneurs the heroes of the African continent, it is the entrepreneurs that promote business development in China; government support entrepreneur with the infrastructure they need.

“If the government is on `e’, government will be very efficient, transparent and the people know what the government can do and the government know what the people want.

“The last and very important is e-education; in the next few days, we are going to have African e-entrepreneur prize; so all the African countries can apply for our awards.

“So, I am very happy to hear that four Nigerian entrepreneurs are right among the top 10; we will be in the final competition in two days and I think Nigerian entrepreneurs will have a great result.

“It is just the beginning for us; our job is to support entrepreneurs because we are all entrepreneurs; we are all founders of our own businesses in China,’’ he said.

Recall in 2018 Vice President Yemi Osinbajo led Nigerian delegation to Davos, Switzerland for the 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting taking place from.

While in Davos, Osinbajo held a number of bilateral meetings with representatives of other countries, international business interests and development partners.