Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta held talks on Thursday with visiting Chinese billionaire entrepreneur Jack Ma to discuss ways of empowering the youth through entrepreneurship.

A statement from the presidency released after the meeting in Nairobi said the Kenyan leader and Ma, who is the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, centred on how to empower the youth through trade and innovation.

"They discussed how to cooperate in supporting small businesses and the youth to play a bigger role in the country's economy," the presidency said.

During the talks, Ma said Kenya can create more opportunities for trade through the use of e-commerce and that the country has the capacity to achieve that goal.

The business mogul is accompanied by 38 others from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce who are in the country in search of multi-billion dollar business opportunities with the government as well as local business people.

The businessman with a real time net worth of 35.5 billion U.S. dollars, according to Forbes, is scheduled to give a public lecture at the University of Nairobi later Thursday.

President Kenyatta said the Chinese businessman is an inspiration for millions of youth in Africa and especially in Kenya where the young generation has been setting global trends in innovation and technology.