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Vietnam – US business trade development and business recruitment experts needed

Hi folks

Could I try a couple of angles out on you please?

I am currently doing a cluster/regional planning job in central Vietnam with other consultants. I am advising them that their atttraction of FDI can be facilitated by cluster concepts, but they really must find the GOOD multinationals to provide the supply chains and technology. I propose to advise them to hire (via an aid program?) a US investment attraction expert – or perhaps two – for a couple of years to train their local eco dev practitioners and put in place the right systems to identify the right MNEs rather than a scatter-gun, reactive approach.

Why an American you ask? Well, the days of Nixon and Kissinger are pretty well forgotten, and I reckon you lot know how to do FDI attraction best – plus you have the markets and control over the supply chains in FMCG etc. If there was an American who grew up in Vietnam (ie has the language skills), so much the better. Anyway, this might all be a bit fanciful, but I’d be interested in your views.

The second angle I am running is for the Viets to think about linking up with clusters in US, Canada, Japan, Aust/NZ, Singapore, India or Europe in order to facilitate tech transfer and two-way trade, investments or just ideas. Language would be a problem, hence the need to find Viet expats. The key industries and hence cluster possibilities for this region are food, forestry, tourism, creative industries and building materials. Do you have any clusters or networks in these fields that might have a potential alliance with Vietnam?

Thirdly, there is the possibility of getting local government and related agencies more involved in aid projects – to take pressure off the UN, World Bank, ADB etc. It might even be possible to combine funding via OZ-US councils? The attached article explains my thinking – I write a monthly column here in Oz and below this is next month’s draft copy!

So… thank you for your patience – appreciate any views you may have.

Please contact me so we can get a bit of interaction going!!!

regards

Rod Brown

Cockatoo Network

(& APD Consulting Ltd)

Canberra ACT Australia

02 – 62317261 Mobile 0412 922559

BLOG http://www.investmentinnovation.wordpress.com

***

Vietnam – leadership via local government

I hadn’t realised that Vietnam’s GDP/head was lower than that of China’s. Nor had I appreciated the friendliness and the work ethic of the Vietnamese people.

It all came into focus last month, when I was in Vietnam as part of a consultancy team advising on integrated planning and development opportunities. We had lurched into a small village in the mountains west of Da Nang – an indigenous hill tribe of some 2,000 whose livelihood depends on cassava, maize, rice and a small broom manufacturer. The villagers are one of Vietnam’s 53 ethnic minorities. Their sunny disposition belies grinding poverty – as exampled by the village chief’s story that a Korean company, based in Da Nang, had recently invited folk from the hill tribes to apply for jobs, but no one could afford the trip to the interviews!

So Roz, our team leader, asked them what types of enterprises might provide an economic lifeline. By connecting a few dots, there seem to be three good possibilities:

a small garment manufacturing operation requiring, inter alia, some sewing machines and a training program.

a pig herd, to help address the lack of protein in the tribe’s diet.

a saw mill, to trigger local value adding of the significant forestry resource .

Later, back in civilisation over a chilled Heinekin, we tossed around some ‘what if’ scenarios.

What if we constructed an aid project that the donors could visit, see and touch, and be assured that 100% of their donation went into a productive asset? The breeder pigs and sewing machines might cost a modest $5,000 in Year 1, and $US3,000 in each of Years 2 and 3.

What if it took some pressure off the World Bank and AusAID, by involving local councils in Australia e.g. those with significant Vietnamese populations like Dandenong, Maribyrnong, Playford, Fairfield.

What if there was a disused saw mill plant lying around in Australia that a council or a company might ship to Vietnam to kick-start a timber industry?

What if we lined up other parties to fund the recurrent costs of these businesses in the initial stages? e.g. training, marketing, transport.

What if other councils applied the same model to other hill tribes in Vietnam?

What if, once we get the system right, we applied the model to Somalia, Indonesia, Laos etc?

We would appreciate your early thoughts on the above. Our project finishes around Christmas.

Succession strategies

The feds are currently reviewing their approach to regional development. A member of our Cockatoo Network, Tony O’Malley OAM (Outlook Management in SA) recently weighed in with some thought-provoking views on where the focus should be.

“I wonder if the federal government is interested in the problems of sustaining leadership and culture in regional and remote communities? I’m thinking of the regional leaders I have met who have become worn down by the tasks imposed by a community which doesn’t encourage succession in its leaders (e.g. the football clubs with the 1955 grand final team still on the committee) and so unwittingly squeeze out emerging young leaders.

I’m also thinking of the gulf in understanding of local opportunities and threats between newly-minted teachers from capital cities taking up their careers in regional schools – as well as the needs of enterprises and communities to generate careers in their region. I’m not pretending that young people should not leave and learn, just that there are great enterprises in our regions despairing at developing in their communities and workforces the culture of excellence and the leadership needed to take existing opportunities.

Regional programs must develop new leaders. Career development is a community task which we have been leaving to teachers with neither the time nor the information. An encyclopaedia of careers does not show anyone what kind of life a career offers, but a well-resourced program can put new recruits and experienced warhorses in those careers in front of families and young people. Maybe we could build, into the annual rural show and field day displays, details of the requisite regional careers, activities and skills required.”

Well said, Tony! Please feel free to reinforce his views with your federal MPs.

WA’s investment hubs

Last month, we began the main hubs in WA that could form part of a national investment framework. We covered the Pilbara, Kimberleys and the Gascign and mid-west regions. Herewith remainder.

Perth has four four well-recognised hubs – the CBD and inner-city business districts; the Fremantle-Kwinana-Rockingham corridor which now has world-class industrial capability and infrastructure; Eastern Perth corridor, where most suburbs start with B and have longstanding expertise and proximity to the airport and the interstate rail system; and the north-west growth corridor around Yanchep, Joondalup and Wanneroo. The Neerabup industrial estate is currently fast-tracking 400 ha.

Mandurah (pop. 71,000) is the key city in the Peel region. A commuter belt to Perth, resort centre, retirement hub. Like Bunbury (further to the south) it’s the real deal in terms of wine, forestry, mining, mineral processing (bauxite, alumina, gold), agriculture, equine pursuits, fishing, tourism and beaches. The passenger light rail link to Perth was opened in 2008 and is delivering spin offs for residential and commercial land.

Bunbury (pop. 56,000) is a world-class hub two hours drive south of Perth. A wonderful mix of forestry, wine, gourmet food, eco-tourism, fruit, livestock, dairying, coal-fired energy, alumina, mineral sands, tin, tantalite, chemicals. The Kemerton industrial estate is a major mineral treatment and engineering cluster. TAFE and University campuses.

Heading further south we skip around Busselton and Margaret River and the next real hub is Albany (pop. 25,000), the key city of the Great Southern region. It has a deepwater port, and a well-established sense of identity with timber, wool, wine, broadacre crops, essential oils, fishing and meat processing for international markets. It also has some effective local champions. TAFE and University campuses.
Moving eastwards is Esperance (pop. 15,000) which is a major port for grain and minerals. Its lead pollution problems have drawn unwanted publicity. It nevertheless has magnificent fishing, aquatic sports and lifestyle attributes.

And heading inland is Kalgoorlie-Boulder (pop. 30,000+), the heart of the Goldfields-Esperance region. The gold and nickel industries are booming. Major rail-road-air links to Perth and the east, and a LNG pipeline from the Pilbara. Its brothels are a tawdry reminder of its rollicking past.

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