To grow jobs in Africa countries should encourage young people to be entrepreneurs while governments wanting to kickstart small business should give startups a tax break, says Alibaba founder Jack Ma who is in South Africa for the first time to launch a $10-million fund for young African entrepreneurs.
Called the Jack Ma Foundation ‘Netpreneur’ Prize, the fund aims to empower “a new generation of entrepreneurs, and focusing on small business growth, grassroots innovation and women founders” by funding 100 young African entrepreneurs over the next decade.
“It’s very important for Africa is to create jobs. The best way to create jobs encourage small business, to encourage young people,” Ma said at the “Netpreneurs: The Rise of Africa’s Digital Lions” conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday. The conference was organised by Alibaba Business School, the Jack Ma Foundation, and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
“Every country should encourage young people,” he said, including giving “good tax conditions to the startups. Big companies don’t need that. We startups need that,” he said to a thunderous roar of “yes” from the packed Linder Auditorium.
“Governments should encourage entrepreneurs. It’s the entrepreneur that will drive dreams in Africa. Small businesses create jobs. Dreams drive the economy,” he added. “Let’s make Africa a digital Africa.”
Because of the digital age we are in, governments should also focus on enabling entrepreneurs through building up the infrastructure for this.
“We are entering a digital period. Governments should focus on the infrastructure for internet broadband, mobile payment and logistics,” he told me in an exclusive interview after his speech. “These are the things all the African countries should solve together.”
He also advocates for a “cross-continent policy of free trade for small business” so that they can “import and export quickly and efficiently” because “most of the free trade zones are designed for big business”.
This he believes, “will encourage a lot of small businesses”.
He has a particular focus on job creation, which is a topical subject in South Africa after government figures released this month show unemployment has risen to 27%.
“I believe today we should not talk about the robots and artificial intelligence in Africa. We should talk about innovative ways to solve job creation for Africa. If there are no jobs, no matter how excellent the innovation or the technology is, that is going to be a problem.”
He adds: “If there are more entrepreneurs who start more business, then they will [create] more jobs. What we want to do is encourage the entrepreneurs.”
He said he has been thinking about “more extended, professional training for entrepreneurs” not only to train them but to encourage other youngsters who will have a role model. “It’s like a desert. When you water it, green things will come.”
Ma met with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday morning, and tweeted a photograph of them afterwards, saying: “I had the pleasure of meeting with one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurs & investors, founder of the Alibaba Group, Mr Jack Ma. We exchanged views & had a good discussion on the global economy & prospects for investment in South Africa. I wish him all the best with his visit.”
Ma’s speech was a rallying cry for entrepreneurs and he cited Alibaba’s experience frequently.
“Entrepreneurs do the things before everything is ready,” he said, recounting how China wasn’t connected to the internet when Alibaba launched in 1999. There would be “no Alibaba if everything was ready”.
When he started his first business in 1994 (Alibaba was his third) with the word internet in its name, people said there’s “no such word in the dictionary”.
“China was not connected [to the internet] the day I started my company,” while naysayers said without the internet, credit cards or ecommerce it would never succeed.
These are the same problems facing Africa now: “No credit cards, no logistics, nNo government support.” But he stressed, “that is the opportunity”.
He urged his audience not to lose heart. “As entrepreneurs we never complain, we make others complain. We make our competitors cry. We make people who don’t believe in our dreams cry. When you have dreams you are never poor.”
UNCTAD Secretary-General Dr Mukhisa Kituyi welcomed Ma with an equally stirring address, focsussing on how to solve Africa’s legislative restrictions on entrepreneurs and free trade.
"Most governments haven’t implemented policies for ecommerce. Africa is still the dark continent when it comes to e-commerce. The critical challenges of regional payment system that facilitate payments across borders remains,” he said. “The digital divide is our political responsibility first.”
Like the ever-optimistic Ma, he thinks “we must be believers that we can find the solutions. There are possibilities in the digital space that have worked for others that can work for you.”
Kituyi, who was Kenya's Minister of Trade and Industry from 2002 to 2007, said young African’s need to look beyond their own countries and aim wider with their entrepreneurial ideas. "Get out of our country to see how petty it is thinking local".
Africa needs to "grow an army of impatient entrepreneurs to get government to do what we want".
