CHINESE billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma had a ‘perfect’ and ‘excellent’ meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte Wednesday, as he called the country’s Internet service “not good” in an audience that included telco executives.
“Perfect… It was good,” Ma told reporters, who chanced upon him after meeting with Duterte and granted requests for selfies from the media and other Palace guests.
Prior to meeting with Duterte, one of the first things Ma noticed was the country’s Internet speeds were dismal and needed further improvement.
“I arrived late last night and I tried to test the speed of Philippine [Internet]. It’s no good,” the Alibaba founder said in an audience that included Ernest Cu, chief executive officer of Globe Telecom, and PLDT’s chief revenue officer Eric Alberto.
Ma, who rose from rags to riches, was bestowed a Doctor of Science in Technopreneurship by the De La Salle University.
Ma called for greater cooperation between government and the private sector, or risk throwing back relations to the 20th century.
“I encourage government, entrepreneurs, everybody to work together to improve speed and coverage of Internet,” he said.
“If we are not covering Internet, it’s gonna be worse just like a hundred years ago. Our cities, our countries are not connected,” Ma added.
The Philippines has the slowest average Internet speed in Asia Pacific with an average of 5.5 megabits per second (mbps), according to a May report by content delivery provider Akamai’s Global State of the Internet report.
The global average Internet connection speed, meanwhile, is at 7.2 mbps.
A former English teacher, Ma, whose net worth is estimated at $38.3 billion, co-founded and chairs Alibaba Group, one of the world’s largest e-commerce businesses.
Alibaba’s revenue in the 12 months ending in March 2017 rose by 56 percent to $23 billion.