baba has announced that he will be stepping down as the company's chairman by next september mazari bob hope launched china's online retail boom ma says he will be succeeded by c.e.o. daniel john has been with the company for eleven years and already handles day to day operations jack myers of my english teacher who founded ali baba nine hundred ninety nine in an apartment to connect chinese export has to foreign retailers is now the world's largest e-commerce company will finish his term on the board of directors in twenty twenty. linda holmes going to walk us through this story from our ages studios in singapore linda just explain to our viewers what sort of a role model played in china's e-commerce industry first of all. well i actually built up a time when internet como's was virtually unheard of sometime in the year two thousand and. a platform for business to business transactions and so it's actually helped to transform many chinese industries and from then on what it's actually kick started a lot of companies one is north of the tower which is actually one of the largest e-commerce s