Earlier this month, Ma Yun (aka Jack Ma), the founder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, delivered a speech at the 2018 Shanghai Forum themed “Zhejiang Entrepreneurs in the World.”
In his speech, Ma predicted that this year will be a year full of challenges. Given the gloomy outlook for the global economy in 2019, he advised Chinese enterprises to rely more on their internal strengths and work hard, less they become part of the storm clouds gathering in the external environment.
On a more positive note, Ma also predicted that this year will be a year full of opportunities, especially for China, which has three major advantages that give the nation an edge in this new era.
First, he pointed out that China has nearly 1.4 billion people and 300 million middle-income people.
China accounts for one-fifth of the world’s population and has four times as many people as the United States—currently the world’s largest economy. Though the size of China’s middle-income group can vary, depending on the definition, and it is still a relatively small share of the total population, the group is huge and growing, creating enormous opportunities for multinational companies.