The billionaire founder of the giant electronic commerce Chinese Alibaba, Jack Ma, has returned to China after staying in abroad for more than a year, collects this Monday the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. Businessman disappeared from Chinese public life in 2020 after criticizing the country’s financial control systemafter which Chinese regulators Ant Group IPO suspendedAlibaba’s fintech, under more restrictive regulations for the sector.
Since then, Ma has kept a low profile and numerous international media have reported on his travels abroad, to places like the Spanish island of Ibiza, Thailand or Japan. The Chinese tycoon, with whose arrest there was speculation, visited a school in the city of Hangzhou on Monday (It is) founded by Alibaba executives in 2017as published exclusively by the aforementioned newspaper.
My, what stepped down as chairman of Alibaba in 2019discussed issues such as education and artificial intelligence with the school staff, the outlet points out. The value of the shares from the e-commerce giant grew by 4.28% shortly after 1:00 p.m. local time (05:00 GMT) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchangewhere it is quoted.
Beijing allowed the technology sector to grow without too many regulations for years, but in 2020 it began a canvassing campaign which has been settled in recent years with high penalties for various companies in the industry. Among them is Alibaba, which in 2021 received a large antitrust fine worth 18,200 million yuan (2,646 million dollars, 2,458 million euros), the largest of its kind in the country’s history.
In the last two years, Chinese digital giants have lost trillions of dollars in market value both in Hong Kong and New York, with cases such as the aforementioned fine against Alibaba or the cybersecurity investigation into ‘Chinese Uber’ Didi after going public on the New York stock market despite the apparent opposition of the Chinese government, which caused a stock crash and the subsequent decision to withdraw them from that market.