Following Alibaba’s better-than-expected forecast sales growth, its executive chairman Jack Ma has made it clear that it still aims to hit gross merchandise volume of $1 trillion, and create 1m jobs, in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2020.

The Chinese eCommerce giant saw its market value surge by $42bn last week, after its forecast sales growth topped analyst’s estimates. The company forecast 45 to 49 per cent revenue growth in the year ending March.

The forecast puts the company well on track for its ambitious target of $1 trillion gross merchandise volume, and, according to Ma, Alibaba is no longer just a company but an economy all of its own.

“Five years ago, when the Taobao and Tmall GMV just crossed $170bn GMV, which is RMB1 trillion, I had a crazy idea. I said: ‘What if we could make $1tn by the 20-year anniversary of Alibaba, the year 2019 – today, we call it the 2020 fiscal year – we should meet the $1tn U.S. dollars?’” said Ma, “but I hate the exchange rate.”

Despite Ma’s bold ambitions, he still considers the company “a baby” in the grand scheme of things but is very clear on what needs to be done for it to grow into an ‘adult’ per se.

“If a company can serve two billion consumers, that is one third of the total population of the world,” said Ma at the company’s investor day. “If the company can create 100 million jobs, this is probably bigger than most governments can do. This is called [an] economy.”

“The vision is to last 102 years, so we have another 84 years to go. We are still a small company.”