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-commerce business players have expressed optimism that the involvement of Chinese billionaire Jack Ma in a special government committee will give a boost to the sector.

Ma, the chairman of Chinese giant online marketplace Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., has accepted the invitation from President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to become an adviser to the government’s e-commerce steering committee, according to Alibaba’s Twitter account.

Jakarta-based online store Bukalapak CEO Achmad Zaky said Ma’s involvement in the steering committee would be a breath of fresh air for the e-commerce sector and encourage small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country to market their products on online platforms.

Indonesia has the largest number of SMEs in Southeast Asia, with over 50 million operating nationwide, but only a tiny fraction of these have gone online. Some 1 million SMEs trade on Bukalapak, Achmad claimed. “Any advice from Jack Ma will be very important in nourishing those [SMEs] that are ready to compete in both the domestic and overseas markets,” Achmad told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The job offer came when President Jokowi visited Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China, on Sept. 2 as the government just recently launched an e-commerce roadmap to foster the burgeoning industry, with transactions expected to reach US$24.6 billion this year.

The roadmap is being monitored and nurtured by a committee of 10 members, led by Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution along with the Communications and Information Ministry, Trade Ministry, Bank Indonesia (BI) and Financial Services Authority (OJK), among other institutions.

The Indonesian E-commerce Association (idEA) chairman Aulia E. Marinto said on Thursday that Ma was likely to offer bright ideas to assist the country’s e-commerce industry, given his vast experience in turning Alibaba, which was established in 1999, into the world’s online marketplace behemoth.

The extent to which Ma will contribute to the steering committee remains unclear, but Aulia said the government needed to also involve local business players in the roadmap’s deliberation, as it would produce the directives on how to shape the country’s e-commerce policies and industry direction.

Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara, who accompanied Jokowi during the Hangzhou visit, expressed his optimism that Ma’s involvement would raise Indonesia’s profile in the international marketplace.

Rudiantara added that both Jokowi and Ma had a similar vision on how to develop SMEs so that they could grow in the constantly changing internet era.

“The government is targeting that, by 2020, there should be 8 million SMEs connected to the internet. The Communications and Information Ministry is currently working with the Cooperative and SMEs Ministry on the program,” Rudiantara said as quoted by the Cabinet secretary website.

Alibaba has a presence in Indonesia through the Southeast Asia online marketplace Lazada, into which Alibaba invested $1 billion recently, and through its subsidiary, Tmall Global, which hosts the Indonesian platform Inamall, enabling local products to be accessed in the Chinese marketplace.

The government’s e-commerce industry roadmap, which comprises 31 initiatives, is focused on seven major issues: start-up funding, logistics, consumer protection, communications infrastructure, tax revision, human resource development and cyber security.

IdEA data showed that e-commerce transactions have the potential to triple in value this year from the 2013 figure of around $8 billion, thanks to the emerging middle class and the surging use of the internet in the country.

The Boston Consulting Group estimates that 141 million people will achieve middle class status by 2020, up from 88 million in 2014. Meanwhile, it is expected that there will be 215 million active internet users in the country by 2020, up from 110 million now. (mos)