Alibaba founder Jack Ma was in Kuala Lumpur on Monday to open his company's first office in Southeast Asia. Ma's appearance at the opening was also an opportunity for him to seek reassurances that Malaysia still supports a host of Alibaba initiatives started before the shock defeat of Najib Razak's ruling coalition last month. Rian Maelzer reports.

Jack Ma tours Alibaba's first Southeast Asian office with Malaysia's new ministers of finance and multimedia. The office will be the nerve center for a growing list of Alibaba initiatives here. They include the first expansion of Alibaba's electronic world trade platform outside of China to boost e-commerce opportunities for Malaysian small and medium enterprises, making Malaysia Alibaba's regional e-commerce distribution hub and helping Kuala Lumpur use big data and AI to improve traffic management through the City Brain initiative.

JACK MA, FOUNDER ALIBABA GROUP "We come here looking for partners. We come here to enable partners. We want partners to be the local kings here because we know that only when the partners succeed, we succeed."

RIAN MAELZER KUALA LUMPUR "Before the ceremony, Ma held an eagerly anticipated meeting with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the man who 20 years ago created the Multimedia Super-corridor Initiative aiming to make Malaysia a global ICT hub."

JACK MA, FOUNDER ALIBABA GROUP "We share a lot of similarities. We believe in the internet, we believe in technology, we believe in young people and I'm very touched and moved by his passion in supporting the village guys, the poor, rural people. We both are interested in how we can use technology to empower the rural farmers, how we can create jobs for them and make them more productive."

LIM GUAN ENG MALAYSIAN MINISTER OF FINANCE "We are of course very happy to have Jack Ma here. We want to welcome Alibaba's continued commitment to Malaysia and I appreciate your eagerness to work with the new federal government to help spur new investment, create new jobs and economic opportunities."

The enthusiastic reception Ma received from this country's new leaders will not only reassure Alibaba about the prospects for future collaborations. It will help reassure all Chinese companies looking to do business with Malaysia following last month's change of government. Rian Maelzer, CGTN, Kuala Lumpur.