Alibaba Group on Tuesday night sought to push back earlier reports of comments made by its chairman Jack Ma Yun about fake goods, saying the reports misinterpreted Ma's views and quoted him "out of context."
Online media quoted Ma out of context by "simply summarizing [his] comments to 'fake goods might have better quality, cheaper prices,'" Zheng Junfang, an executive at Alibaba, said in a statement the company sent to the Global Times.
The statement came after earlier media reports said that Ma suggested fake goods are better than the real ones in a meeting with investors on Tuesday.
Under the headline of "Alibaba's Jack Ma: Fake goods are better than the real deal," CNNMoney, citing Ma, reported Tuesday afternoon that "Chinese-manufactured fake products are just as good as - if not better - than the real deal."
The CNNMoney report also quoted Ma as saying "the problem is that the fake products today - they make better quality, better prices than the real product."
But Alibaba said those comments were taken out of context.
"The issue with fake goods is not an issue of price, but a complex legal issue, and for OEM [original equipment manufacturing] factories, it's an issue about finding a new business mode," Zheng said in the statement.
Zheng further stated that "Alibaba is willing to put resources into that and help these kinds of factories to transform and upgrade."
According to the statement, Ma was describing a "phenomenon" where Chinese manufacturers are able to produce high-quality goods that meet international standards but lack sales channels. After they discover they can sell their products online, people start to see the emergence of "products with the same quality as the real one, but much lower prices" on the market.
Ma said that phenomenon was worth studying.
