He is a man of small and thin build. He does not speak loudly, but when he does, the entire audience falls silent. It is considered one of the great "gurus" of e-commerce and with its Alibaba platform and its different subsidiaries, managed to amass one of the greatest fortunes in Asia, with about $ 48 billion. The company, in turn, already has a market value close to the $ s460,000 million.

This is Jack Ma, one of the most powerful men in the world of business worldwide but who still defines himself as an entrepreneur. And he has no plans to stop. On the contrary, he goes for more: now, it postulates the foreign trade revolution, as it made clear in its new visit to Buenos Aires, to participate in the XI Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"The formalities of world trade will change. And the electronic channel is the future. In my opinion, it is not an alternative, it is the great solution for SMEs and for globalization, which simply has to improve, "he said at the beginning of his talk, accompanied by WTO Director Roberto Azevêdo and Richard Samans, member of the Board of Directors of the World Economic Forum.

"Until now, it was the big companies that went to the consumers with their big containers. Now there will be a trade with packages and parcels, from consumers to companies", said Ma. And to support his vision that the old structures are already obsolete and will be overcome, he threw on the table the figures that his company manages and that are superior to many nations, thanks to e-commerce: "We already generated 33 million jobs and, in a single day, we have come to sell for US $ 25,000 million. All thanks to the small and medium companies that operate with us. "

In this regard, Ma told the WTO director that it is necessary to limit regulations to the maximum, so that businesses prosper and technological infrastructure is developed in all nations (especially those in the process of development), so that create an ecosystem favorable to online commerce. "I think there are things that have to be regulated but not now. In ten years maybe, basically because only then we will know what we have to regulate ", provocatively launched the mega-billionaire businessman. 

Therefore, he considered that "the world needs more incentives than limitations. You should pay less taxes if you use e-commerce. " The only point where he considered that governments should act with more vehemence is in the control of the black market: "Policies are needed to fight counterfeit products, because there is a lot of online trash. And if you do not work against these criminals, then we would be facing a catastrophe. "

However, Jack Ma does not conceive a business ecosystem as a virtual liberated zone. On the contrary, the owner of Alibaba approached the WTO to reach consensus and reach agreements with as many countries as possible. "Globalization must improve and is the key to promote and help small businesses and entrepreneurs," he said.

Also, he anticipated what he imagines in terms of world trade: an Alibaba without borders. "The idea is to have an international platform with which all nations can work, with global payments," he explained, adding that "this requires a dialogue between the private sector and the public, so that everyone can participate. In fact, by collaborating with the WTO, we hope that in the next ten years, SMEs and developing countries will have a greater presence in global trade. "

And this, far from being a desire expression, is an incipient reality: in November it has just launched, together with the government of Malaysia, the first "digital free trade economic zone", a special area created especially for small and small businesses to operate. medium-sized companies, with simplified export and import procedures and minor bureaucratic obstacles.

This, insisted Ma once again, will help "world trade develop not only from the movement of large containers but through simple packages and parcels."

Then, he again stressed the need to deregulate the exchange: "We should not have a huge book of standards. I should achieve with having two pages. "

"When Malaysian officials asked me to complete this platform in three months, we did it in three months. This is not about first elaborating the rules but about starting to work quickly, "he said.

Then, the representative of Malaysia to the WTO, who said that the administration of his country is moving to change all standards and thus facilitate e-commerce as an export platform.

"Since we launched this special free zone, we have seen how small and medium-sized companies go out to sell to the world and manage to expand their business, beyond their traditional markets," he said.

According to the official, "this allowed them to lower costs, because they reduce the number of intermediaries. The success has been fulminating. The benefits are there, in electronic commerce. If more countries participate in this network, then growth will be enormous worldwide. "

Faced with this request, Ma himself said that soon will be launching new economic zones of digital free trade in three other countries.

And he said that it will take little time for this type of agreement to completely revolutionize the global exchange of goods.

"For centuries, few companies managed the flows of goods. We, in the last 18 years, have allowed hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses to operate and do business. We did not have infrastructure, nor incentive policies and starting from scratch. Today we are one of the largest companies in the world. "

In case there were doubts, the small man who moves millions, left a notice that awoke some smiles in the auditorium, but surely it bothered his two panel colleagues: "I am an entrepreneur and my life's work is to promote e-commerce . If you like, we advance. If you do not like it, we also move forward. "