MANILA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez thanked Alibaba's founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma on Thursday for providing insights on optimising the use of technology to improve governance and prepare Filipinos for the future under a digital economy.

Upon Ma's invitation, Dominguez, along with Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and other government officials and representatives from the Philippines' business sector attended the Alibaba Business School's three-day New Economy Workshop last week.

The workshop was designed to gain a wider understanding of an e-commerce ecosystem including the digital technologies that can be employed to improve the Philippines' nascent online payment system in pursuit of inclusive growth.

Dominguez said the workshop organized by the Alibaba Business School offered him and the rest of the Philippine delegation the opportunity to peer into the future and learn how to further open opportunities for growth for Filipinos.

"The real purpose of doing this is really to see how our government can improve the people's lives not only for tomorrow but for the future," Dominguez said, mentioning they were offered a series of lectures on how digital technology applications can be used to empower small businesses and expand their access to online credit, improve logistics networks, and even improve traffic enforcement.

According to Alibaba, the new economy program for government officials will be expanded to more countries in Southeast Asia, underlining the company's commitment to promoting the new economy paradigm and the role of e-commerce in creating a more inclusive trade and development system.