By People’s Daily News The founder and CEO of Alibaba Group Jack Ma will pay a visit to Belgium. During the visit, Belgium’s King Philippe will invite Ma to Royal Palace of Laeken to attend a party for elites in high-tech industry, luxury brands, and start-up entrepreneurs. Jack Ma and Belgium’s King Philippe. Photo courtesy of Weibo. According to a report of Les Échos, Ma will visit the Royal Palace of Laeken on May 23, have lunch with King Philippe, and attend the elite party in the palace. The party, as Les Échos interprets, is to create opportunities for the start-up entrepreneurs among the 14 European business leaders invited to the party, so that they can display their products and technology to Jack Ma, which will hopefully enter the Chinese market with the platform of Alibaba. Les Échos also released the list of people attending the party, including commercial attache Cecilia Malmstrom from EU Chamber of Commerce, CEO of Proximus Dominique LeRoy, Jef Colruyt from Colruyt, Jose Zurstrassen from My MicroInvest, Chairman Michèle Sioenand, CEO Pieter Timmermans of Federation of Enterprises in Belgium, CEO of Sign2Pay Nicolas Mertens, CEO of Domobios Anne-Catherine Mailleux, millinery manufacturer Fabienne Delvigne, and CEO of Real Impact Analytics Sebastien Deletaille. Les Échos says that what actually concerns Belgium is whether Alibaba will set up an office in Brussels. Ever since the establishment of Alibaba’s office in the Netherlands, the hot sale of tulips in China has become a point of envy for merchants in Belgium. Based on the frequent communication between Jack Ma and King Philippe, Les Échos drew a conclusion that the postponement of setting up office in Brussels has nothing to do with Alibaba’s recent announcement of opening an office in Amsterdam.
