(Yicai Global) March 16 -- Some 34 officials from Indonesia have undertaken a training session with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chairman Jack Ma as they look to develop their home economy.

The ministers hailed from departments covering small- to medium-sized enterprises, logistics and financial supervision, online news portal Sina reported.

Indonesia's development challenges lie in logistics and payments, and the nation could learn from China's biggest e-commerce, Southeast Asian country's Minister of Communications and Informatics Rudiantara said.

"E-commerce is a solution to the sustainable growth of developing countries and also a solution to the problems in Southeast Asia," Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma told the ministers at the session. He stressed that Indonesia's infrastructure and market environment today are much better than when Alibaba started up 18 years ago, and that the country has great young people who are looking for innovative development paths.

"In the era of the mobile internet, people living in rural areas can buy, use and pay with smartphones, and can reap the benefits of the internet," Ma said.

The most important way to get Indonesia's rural areas out of poverty is not through science and technology, but through culture and ways of thinking, said Rudy Salahuddin, deputy minister for creative economy, entrepreneurship, and cooperatives & SMEs.

"I didn't expect Alibaba's help for Chinese SMEs and rural areas to be so great," added Hari Sungkari, deputy of infrastructure at the Creative Economy Agency. "I think if we have a company in the East that is powerful and respected by the United States and Europe, we need to look into it. In Indonesia, we need more companies like Alibaba and entrepreneurs like Ma."