Jack Ma relinquished his title as the head of a prestigious guild in his home province, as the founder of Alibaba Group Holding continued his post-retirement tour of food-related businesses and farms around the world.

Ma, who turned 58 in September, stepped down on Wednesday as the president of the General Association of Zhejiang Entrepreneurs, a titular position he held since 2015 in the congregation of corporate chieftains in his home province, an area in China long-known for private entrepreneurship.

Ma’s successor at the guild is Nan Cunhui, the chairman of the electric parts maker Chint Group, according to the association’s bimonthly publication Zheshang Magazine.

The guild offered Ma a prestigious backdrop to speak about entrepreneurship, management and governance, and now it continues to offer him an honorary title as an adviser.

Ma retired and stepped down as Alibaba’s executive chairman in 2019 when he turned 55. Ma has no plans to live abroad permanently, according to people familiar with his plans. He will next go to Southeast Asia for a similar look at agriculture-related businesses.

Ma, who spent one in every three days of the year travelling in 2018, scaled back his schedule significantly in retirement. He spent the past three months in Japan, where he looked into the operations of farmed fishery technology, extending his interest in sustainable agriculture and the food industry, according to people familiar with his travels.

Ma visited the Oshima station of the Kindai University’s Aquaculture Research Institute – launched in 1970 – in Japan’s Wakayama prefecture in September when he turned 58, sources said.

According to people close to him, Ma is determined to bring home later the advanced agricultural technology he learned from other countries.

The visit was consistent with Ma’s interests in agricultural technology and food supplies. He visited a research institute in the Netherlands in October 2021, part of a study tour through Europe to acquaint himself with food-related technology including agricultural infrastructure, plant breeding, and the training of expertise in the field, according to people familiar with his plans.

Ma was inspired by what he saw in Europe and believed that a combination of the latest technology would create tremendous potential for the modernisation of agriculture in China, and developing countries as well, sources said.

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