Today is Wednesday, and it reminds me of a friend who joins me for wine tasting from time to time. As a practice to appreciate different wines, we rate each wine tasted according to our own preferences – aroma, fruitiness, tannin, complexity, readiness to drink, after taste, vintage etc. Instead of the conventional rating in numbers, he likes assessing the quality of wine in terms of the day of the week. So he would say, ‘this is a Wednesday early afternoon!’. I always wonder how Wednesday tastes like…
Borrowing his sense of measurement, I try to ‘make use of’ the day and time to evaluate daily life. Shared with many of you, I spend part of my working life concentrating my mind in an office, and after a while, I get used to the regular rhythm of the weekday-working module. I apply the ‘day-and-time’ ruler to measure my indoor working mode, and then I come up with a general phenomenon that Wednesday is often the most productive day, at least it cohesively balances the flow of work tasks and planning of the week. After some warm up on Monday and Tuesday and the ‘due diligence’ to properly handle the follow up work carried forward from the previous week, Wednesday is a good moment for effective processing and new planning for project tasks. Then, the work process cycle repeats…
Of course, there are deadlines to meet for different tasks and the generalised approach is subject to applicability. Yet, the sentiment is always there.
Following the logic, I choose to take advantage of Wednesday and take a layman approach to wildly consider how developing economies can attract FDIs for growth. My assumption bases on the idea that such developing economies need to foster their export-led development as a motor to growth, and they would have to strengthen their readiness, capacity and competitiveness to engage in export business. In an ideal scenario, the economies advocate the export trade initiative, and all the people act in favour of the goal to increase the volume and the efficiency of trade as long as the marginal benefit to the economy retains. One of the concerns for the developing economies is their unfavourable infrastructure capacity to ‘fairly’ trade with other countries as well as the sustainability to maintain the momentum to trade. Some say attracting FDIs is one way to boost their supply-side capacity to trade. So how the economies can attract FDIs become strategic, and sometimes more like ‘an art’ to stand out from other capital-seeking competitors.
Globalisation symptomises intensified competition to attract FDIs, and it perhaps leads to a higher tendency to more volatile FDI flow. In order to look ‘attractive’ to investors and donors, the developing economies have to find a way to nicely present a favourable atmosphere and timing for FDIs, and they have to showcase their niche and potential to development and growth. A prescription of improving governance (if not good enough), stable political scene, anti-corruption move, more liberalised economic development, favourable rules and regulations to FDIs etc. calls for a good moment for FDIs to come. Next, the economies may have to spend some effort in promoting themselves, or in other cases, the international organisations and other investment stakeholders have to aid the economies to derive and implement promotion strategy to attract capital to invest and facilitate sustainable trade development.
When I wonder if there is a best practice to promote developing economies as a prosperous investment spot and a good trade partner, I list some implementation dimensions below for brainstorming purpose.
- So as to look prosperous, how about organise a big event? World Cup in South Africa? World Expo in Shanghai? APEC Meeting in Vladivostok?
- Or it would be more pragmatic and match-making to conduct investment and development roadshows? Do investors listen? Are they convinced?
- To deal with the fundamental trade capacity, is it always good to launch JV Infrastructure Development with favourable terms offering to FDIs? Construction of road, bridge, dam, port, electricity grid or power network? Set up Free Trade Zone, Science Park, manufacturing cluster?
- Natural resource may not only be a curse…is it viable to promote FDI-driven local tourism? Sustainable tourism? World heritage sites? Patented Rainforest or Safari tour? Boat cruise and duty free zone? Processing hub for gemstones?
- Explore developing export business sectors related to cultural and ritual activities? Music carnival and musical instruments? Film festival? Food exhibition? Pilgrimage together with ritual products and services?
- Highlight Social Responsibility? Ethical textile and handcraft? Organic agriculture? Job-creating ethical industries in local communities?
Are they effective? How much would they contribute to national economy? Are they sustainable in view of the volatility of FDI flow in times of financial turmoil? I guess there is no best scenario, and depending on the niche of each economy, there is a need for more customised approach. While we consider how to attract more FDIs to boost development, we should also consider how much benefit FDIs can bring to the economies.
Going back to the current scenario, how can the least developed economies move forward to get through basic challenges like malnutrition, sanitation, vulnerability to natural disaster, education, corruption, governance and so on? We may still only be in a Monday misty morning…
A nice year with perfect sunny moment. This was a long time no taste sentiment. Balanced, still youthful, the tannin texture shaped a favourite of black fruit taste. With a deviated drinking pattern in school life, this is a retreat to the good days. The other time when I was properly tasting the Longueville wine was a 1997 vintage some years ago. It just happened that the chateau always comes with the good mood and mix of friends... 
