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Tragedy in Indonesia

Tragedies and disasters in the headlines are worrisome enough – but they really hit home when there’s even the smallest connection, like having stayed at the hotel, or flown that airline. When you know people there – even friends of friends – it feels personal.

It was so in Mumbai when the gunmen took over two luxury hotels and killed people at random. It’s so in Jakarta, Indonesia, where a few days ago, criminals set off two explosions targeted at whoever happened to be in the way. I got back from a few days without web-access to find a tragic message in my e-mail.

IMA Asia, the Asian business environment company with which I’m associated, has a partner company in Indonesia run by Jim Castle. CastleAsia was holding a breakfast meeting with clients in the Marriot Hotel at the time of the blast. Including the CastleAsia staff, 18 people were present.

Four people in the group were killed: Tim McKay from Holcim, Craig Senger from Austrade, Garth McEvoy from Thiess, and Nathan Verity of Verity HR.

Another four were somewhat sheltered by a pillar, and had minor injuries. This included Jim Castle. The others, including Jim Castle’s Number 2 at CastleAsia, Max Boon – who lost part of a leg – were injured to various degrees, and many of them were medically evacuated to Singapore. Though many of the injuries were serious, Richard Martin of IMA Asia reports that none are believed to be life-threatening.

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Indonesia has never been the safest of places, but this kind of targeting of foreigners is calculated to spook foreign investment, tourism, and business. The police think the Bali bombers may be responsible.

I’m not going to call it senseless violence – most violence is senseless to the victims, and has some dark meaning to the perpetrators. This, according to some analysts, is about splinter groups withing a terrorist organization. These are casualties in some guy’s efforts to be more ruthless, more violent than his competitors.

And again, the dead include nationals of many countries that really don’t have a fight with the Islamists. Reuters reports that according to police, the casualties included citizens of Indonesia, Australia, South Korea, the Netherlands, Italy, Britain, Canada, Norway, Japan, India and the United States. At least one, Tim McKay, is from New Zealand.

How long before we’re so inured to these disasters that we start thinking of them like plane crashes? And will that make the terrorists want to up the ante, or will they try for other ways to make their various points?

China’s still growing

A recent meeting and paper from IMA Asia came to the conclusion that China’s still growing nicely.

There’s a slump in export demand, it’s true; and the export-oriented sector is not doing that well. But what drives China’s economy is domestic demand, which is growing; and more particularly, domestic investment. China’s economy is investment-led, not consumption-led (as the US is). IMA Asia’s corporate clients in China confirm that their sales have been rising.

Right now, I’d say that China (followed by India) looks like the brightest spot in the global economy.

IMA Asia Economic Forecasts

The IMA Asia team is out touring the Asian region with their forecasting meetings, and sent me their notes on the subject. They are slowly becoming more optimistic.

The positive political developments in India and an expected win for President Yudhyono in Indonesia suggest stability that allows the governments to get on with dealing with economic problems. (And of course, that’s true in the US as well.) Asia’s economic risk profile looks good compared with much of the rest of the world.

Their three scenarios:

Middle case (most likely at 60%): The advanced economies will contract in 2009, and have zero growth in 2010; “developing Asia” will expand 4.8% in 2009 and 6.1% in 2010.

Worse case (20% probability): Continued problems in the financial sector, developing problems in the airlines and other debt-heavy sectors prolong the recession into 2011 or 2012.

Better case (20% probability): Effective policy-making underpins revived consumer and investor optimism. The market revives by end-2009 or early 2010.

They point out that the positive case and negative case are equiprobable now.
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It’s an interesting perspective, I think. Many people expect Asia to lead the recovery.

Shrunk world

I am currently doing some projects for IMA Asia, which is based in Sydney – halfway across the world from me. They send me the material, I work on it and send it back. It’s a great arrangment, made easier because my client is someone I’ve worked with before. Still, I’ve never met anyone else on the team.

One of IMA Asia’s associates liked what I was doing, wondered if I could do some work for them, and wanted to set up a phone call. He was busy. I was busy. We finally set up a time… and then started talking about the time difference. That’s when he realized I wasn’t in Sydney.

I couldn’t help thinking, Wow! Fifteen years ago, this would not have been happening. I love how the internet and telecommunications are shrinking the world.

I also love e-mail – it’s the easiest way to deal with time differences and busy schedules.

Something Fishy about this Chocolate?

New products. Innovation. Sometimes, interesting things emerge from the concatenation of two disparate ideas.

I suspect they could hardly have gotten more disparate than this one: Milk Chocolate with Omega-3.
(For the not-so-health-obsessed among you, Omega-3 fatty acids are supposed to be heart-healthy fats.)

So here is the product.

Please note the ingredient list.

Omega-3 chocolate ingredient list

An Interview with Beijing Radio

A few days ago, I got a surprise e-mail. ” I’m working with China Radio International in Beijing,” said the writer. She had a copy of my book, India Business Checklists, and quite enjoyed reading it.  “I’m doing a radio program in the run up to the G20 summit, and curious to know if i could have the honor to invite you to join my show sharing with our listeners some of your thoughts—”

Sure. It would be my honor.

So I’ve just done an interview for China Radio International.

“The program will go on air next Tuesday” [i.e., 7 April '09] they told me, and “you can always listen to it on the Internet…” Click the CRI logo for a link.

We talked about how India is still looking at 4-5% growth this year, down from 9% it’s true, but still positive. We talked about India’s pragmatic fiscal and monetary management. (I think the Reserve Bank of India does a pretty good job of what must be one of the world’s toughest assignments, managing inflation, growth and keeping a reasonably stable rupee.)

And I said I was surprised to find that the information in my book was still relevant – in some ways, even more than when I wrote it. The only major change is that the labor market is not nearly as tight as it was in the first half of 2008 when I wrote it.

On the Shelf

Hong Kong Airport Bookshops

I’ve seen the India Business Checklist books, of course; I was sent author’s copies, and they were on sale at the AmCham meeting. But still, when I passed through Hong Kong airport, and found a copy on the shelf, it made it feel real.

The Unexpected Book Tour

Singapore’s an old haunt of mine, but I’ve been away for years. I planned a visit there, and as a courtesy, let my publisher, John Wiley, know I was coming. Would I be willing to do some meetings, they asked.

Of course.

At the AmCham presentation

They took that and ran with it. They set up interviews with Bloomberg. Channel News Asia. Business Times. And they arranged for me to make a presentation at the American Chamber of Commerce. Amcham was expecting about 20 people; they got an audience of 55. That was as many as they could fit into the room.

I was enormously impressed.

John Wiley have done a marvelous job with the book, too, a few editing glitches aside. It’s easy to read, sturdy, and eye-catching.

Consider Joe the Plumber

Joe the Plumber. Divorced father of a 13 year-old, who’s been making a living doing plumbing work. Just a normal Joe. Then he has a Life Changing Experience.

A candidate stops to talk to him for a few minutes, and suddenly, he’s a celebrity. He’s the face of the fear that taxes will be raised on Americans making over $250K, that healthcare costs on small businesses will be prohibitive. They talk about him on the candidate’s debate. Incessantly. He’s Mr Everyvoter.

Then the journalists dig into his background.