EU should not waste opportunity to send right message

Jack Ma, founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba group, is to meet the Belgian king in Brussels on Monday. This is their third meeting since June last year when King Philippe paid a state visit to China. They also met at World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland in January.

Ma is expected to announce the setting up of a Belgian branch of Alibaba, which, as he promised the King last year, will facilitate easier online payments to support Chinese visitors to Belgium.

The move is representative of the opinions of those proactive Chinese investors who still hold confidence in 500 million consumers in the 28 member states of the European Union.