Alibaba, opens new tab co-founder Jack Ma, and other business leaders from China will attend a symposium chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping next week to improve sentiment in the private sector, according to three people with knowledge of the gathering.
The gathering highlights the many issues China Inc. is currently facing, from the rise of tensions with the United States under President Donald Trump to the stuttering growth of the domestic economy. Xi rarely chairs symposiums about the private sector.
According to two sources, an executive from Huawei Technologies is also anticipated to take part.
For this story, Reuters spoke with five individuals who were aware of the symposia; they all asked not to be named because they lacked the authority to speak to the media.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the State Council Information Office, which responds to media inquiries on behalf of the state officials.
When Reuters asked Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, Huawei, and Yushu for comments, they did not reply.
Following the news, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi’s stock continued to rise Friday afternoon. Alibaba was trading 6% higher, nearing a three-year top, while Xiaomi was up 7%, setting a record. Additionally, Tencent’s stock rose 6%.
Six years after taking office, Xi chaired a high-profile private sector symposium for the first time in late 2018. At the time, he reaffirmed that private businesses would have access to funding and promised tax breaks and equal playing fields as part of his support for private corporations.
Jack Ma’s attendance at the upcoming conference could increase business confidence.
After regulators postponed the initial public offering (IPO) of his fintech startup Ant in 2020 due to a speech he gave that year criticizing China’s regulatory structure, the formerly well-known entrepreneur mostly vanished from public life.
His period out of the spotlight represented a turnabout for China’s private sector as his corporate empire and the larger technology sector were the targets of a regulatory crackdown.
Xi has emphasized China’s need for “common prosperity” in recent years, stating that private businesses should be “rich and loving” and “patriotic” and more fairly distribute the rewards of their expansion to their workforce.
His comments have been interpreted as functioning as a check on riskier ventures and deterring excesses in many industries.
