Jack Ma buys a cup of drink with mobile payment at a cinema in Manila.

Alibaba is now stepping up efforts to promote building a cashless society in the Philippines, after the Chinese tech giant and Amazon dominated e-commerce in their home markets, Thepaper.cn reported on Oct. 26.

Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma held a meeting with Alibaba staffs over how to develop e-commerce in the Philippines upon his arrival in Manila on Oct. 24. The meeting yielded plans on developing e-commerce infrastructure in the country, including building market places and strengthening logistics.

In addition, the Alibaba founder was given a Doctor of Science in Technopreneurship Honoris Causa from De La Salle University (DLSU) for setting a good example for young people by establishing a science and technology business.

During a roundtable discussion at the university, Jack Ma shared his thoughts on business opportunities, saying that the field with the most complaints is often full of opportunities.

Jack Ma took the “not good” internet speed in the Philippines as an example, and stressed that providing the best service for consumers can help enterprises achieve a lot.

As people in the Philippines are living on over 7,000 islands in the country and banks cannot be on every island, technology can be used to help them connect, Jack Ma noted.

He also called upon Chinese people in the Philippines to contribute to building a cashless society for the country by selling Philippine products such as fruits to consumers in China through e-commerce, and introducing Chinese products, services, and technologies to the Philippines.