Daily commentary on Asian business strategy, management, market research, marketing tips, business prospects, economic and culture news. Market prospects. Economic prospects. Short reviews, links, advice, satire and topical coverage for international and Asian managers doing business in Asia.

The Hari Ini column is available daily on the Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine home page. Sure.. go there now for more of the same. At least it's fresher...

This page contains one month of the archives.

The Hari Ini column documents off-the cuff comments, very odd spots, unsubstantiated rumours, misinterpretations, cruel innuendo, limp jokes, dodgy links, tips lacking in credibility, and other material very roughly related to Asian business, marketing, management, culture, politics, economics and why the earth is round.

Some of the items emerge into sections later on; some are contributed by email or word of mouth by friends of the forum, columnists, editorial advisors, and the Chao Phraya River Rat. ..Most of it just ends up here...

Basically it means we can at least comment on happenings that we wouldn't otherwise have the time to.

"Hari Ini" means "Today" in both Malaysian and Indonesian.

..Which means that everything on this page is already outta date...

As the masthead suggests, this column also includes all the news that doesn't fit..

It also means we can add some lightheartedness and CNN type shallowness to our otherwise more serious content. As CNN proves, such content sells...

Mostly the column just reflects the mood of the editors on the day, and gives a potted summary of key issues in the region. If you want it to reflect your mood as well, email us contributions at chiyo@apmforum.com.

Chiyo Hyiuiki (Webmaster, and on behalf of the editors)

Kuala Lumpur Malaysia: Friday April 27th 2001

President one year, jailbird the next, Erap Estrada must now stay in the big house for 5 more days until his hearing to allow him to remain under house arrest. One of Estrada's few privileges is that he is kept separate from other prisoners. At least it will stop them doing to him what he has done to the country.

Erap can still command a mob though. Estimated crowds of Erap supporters of from 2 to 3,000 turned up in the last few days in support. Raoul, our man on the street in Manila, almost got caught in the mobs, as one of his clients was "right in Greenhills across from Erap's place. The Masa assembled are getting three square meals a day and about Peso 200 cash each evening...".

Japan's Junichiro Koizumi is now Prime Minister of Japan. Despite being a strong LDP party man, he has a reputation for being an eccentric, and a challenger of the status quo. Already his new cabinet includes five women. Expect surprises. He needs to appease factional groups, but he also needs to imprint a strong reform mark on his leadership before parliamentary elections in July to keep the LDP in thr running.

The International Institute for Management Development's World Competitiveness Yearbook for 2001 has just been released. We follow these rankings annually and expect a full analysis from the Asia Pacific view in the next few days from the Chao Phraya River Rat's Asia Pacific Management News. However, you can view much of the data at the IMD's World Competitiveness Site. Latest Competitiveness Rankings are also available. In the meantime, the big winners in the Asia Pacific are Singapore which has maintained the Number 2 ranking after the USA for 5 years now, Hong Kong, which surged to 6th place from 12th place last year, and Australia at Ranking 11, showing steady improvement from their 15th rank in 1997.

The performance of other Asia Pacific countries are less inspiring.

Taiwan ranked 18th, remaining fairly steady over 5 years, New Zealand, slipped to 21st from 11th in 1997, Japan (26th from 24th last year and 17th in 1997), Korea (28th from 30th in 1997), Malaysia (29th from 14th in 1997), China (33rd from 27th in 1997), Thailand (38th from 31st in 1997), Philippines (40th from 29th in 1997), India, steady at 42nd, and Indonesia bottoming out the list at 49th (38th in 1997).

The IMD's World Competitiveness Index ranks 49 industrialized and emerging economies on four competitiveness input factors - Economic Performance, Government Efficiency, Business Efficiency, and Infrastructure. Stay tuned for our full analysis.

Indonesian petro giant Pertamina is pushing for a higher percentage than the 10% allocated in its agreement with Shell for the lastest big oil find in Indonesia. The argument is based on the claim that large amounts were siphoned off by Tommy Soeharto as "bagman besar", in setting up the agreement back when Tommy ruled the oilfields. That's the way you did it then. Everybody knew that right? Well.. no, says Pertamina, .. you knew it was wrong.. so you pay now!..."

Kuala Lumpur Malaysia: Monday April 23rd 2001

Baby led recovery? Perhaps a good time for pummelled Japanese investors to up their stake in any companies involved in baby foods, pharmaceuticals, pre-natal facilities and the like as rumours of the pregnancy of Crown Princess Masako hit the headlines last week and escalated on the weekend with some saying it could well be an IVF baby.

Traditionally, to bear a child in the same year a Royal baby is born will bring much good luck. And to those who are already counting, nope, the Japanese year is still in early days, leaving enough time for all loyal subjects to get busy. No official statement yet - the government is wary of a false alarm like last time - but Japanese hubbies will no doubt have a new excuse already for late night calisthenics. Pfizer are beaming - Durex, eat your heart out...

And still in Japan, can it really be true that even the conservative and moribund LDP will elect reformist candidate Junichiro Koizumi for party presidency, and therefore most probably PM, over Ryutaro Hashimoto, a party man if there ever was one, with the backing of LDP's largest faction? Japanese friends of the forum are predicting he will, signalling that the LDP has both eyes firmly fixed on upcoming Senate elections and a general election in July. Even the conservative Japanese electorate have had enough of LDP party men as their PM, and Hashimoto's candidacy in the general election will send a message that it's still the old LDP when Japan needs change. Koizumi's slogan is "Change the LDP, Change Japan". Final results come in tomorrow (Tuesday)

News flash: As we went to press Monday morning, reports are coming in that the largest LDP faction is now supporting Koizumi. We expect Hashimito to "honourably withdraw" "any time soon". We suggest you follow breaking news from the news services on the APMF Front Page, (on the right hand side if you are here already), the Asia Business and Market Research News Portal, or our Asian Business News Headlines Page.

Anti globalization forces were at it again from Quebec to Malmo Sweden last weekend, leading to more pre-ejaculations from the left wing press that the anti WTO/Capitalist/Globalization forces are building strength. Of course nothing could be further from the truth, as they make up an impossible alliance of middle class environmentalists, unions, and developing country interests. The trade unionists of developed countries are afraid of losing jobs to workers in developing countries who can do the job much cheaper and sometimes even better. Governments of developing countries are wary of the threat to their national power and sovereignty. Clarence Henderson in his column today on Globalization Revisited reflects that globalization may not be such a bad thing for Filipino workers.

Richard Li of Pacific Century CyberWorks (no relation) is now being sued for statements on company literature that he was a graduate of Stanford University. Like many offspring of the rich and famous Richard dropped out of his schooling before he finished, and only recently admitted to it. The South China Morning Post reports that investors in Rediff India claim Mr Li and his fellow executives at Rediff flouted US securities laws in connection with the sale of shares in the company based on the various misstatements and omissions. Indeed they go on.. ...This misled purchasers of the IPO to believe that Rediff had put together a superb management team when in fact it had not...

In the absence of valid indicators of individual performance in many Asian companies, academic degrees carry a lot of weight. Newspapers throughout Asia are packed full of advertisements for degree-granting institutions both local and international, reflecting the enormous market for such services. The race for the degree is only reinforced by lazy organizations cutting costs on valid aptitude and performance appraisal. A previous Thailand Prime Minister, Barnham, allegedly had his thesis written for him. In many countries, academic thesis ghost writers are a major industry, providing a nice income for students writing for pollies and senior executives.

Unfortunately this is badly misguided, which many find out to their dismay. An MBA for example, generally produces great observers of management, but not great doers. This can only come from experience, smart reflection and continuing learning. Rarely do we see a strong correlation between academic performance and business performance - indeed sometimes it is even negative. See Action Learning for examples of an alternative approach.

The investors in Rediff must take some of the blame themselves. We can appraise Richard Li's abilities on many criteria, but for smart investors, the possession of a degree per se, is not one of them.

Well it was with trepidation that we opened up the APMF mailbox this morning, ready to read the reaction to our story on Mahathir's Little List. It wasn't too bad. Only 3 emails complaining that we left out some of Mahathir's inconvenient people. Well, as we told our correspondents, the song had already got to 6 stanzas and as you can see when you go to the item, our choir members in the chorus were already getting slightly - well - tired and emotional - by the end. As for the educationalists who complained they were left out, well we really thought you were covered by the "Pontificating pointy heads of economic bent" line. Nobody from the Mahathir camp has complained yet - thankfully our Mahathir supporting APMF readers seem to know satire when they see it and retain God's greatest gift - the ability to laugh at yourself.

The middle aged economy hits back: According to the UK Sunday Times, Wal Mart's founder S Robson Walton has taken over Bill Gates' crown as the world's wealthiest man. The retail giant is not quite the essence of the old economy, let's say it comes from the middle-aged economy. Even in a recession, you still need to eat...

The downgrades of Asian economic growth estimates continue this week. Following downgrades of most growth estimates region wide, Indonesia's economic gurus are revising their estimates down to the mid to high 3 percents. The deadlock amongst the Indonesian political élite continues, as competing power groups fight amongst themselves while the archipelago burns.

Kuala Lumpur Malaysia: Friday April 20th 2001

The APMF moves to sparkling Kuala Lumpur Malaysia today for 10 days and then swings through East Asia from Taipei, Taiwan through Soeul Korea and Tokyo Japan in early May. If you want to meet up with the editor, send us an email.

Pisang Goreng? Colorful Malaysian PM Mahathir noted last week that Western commentators critical of the detention without trial of seven opposition figures and impending plans to make Malaysian media laws more "effective" could "fry their faces".

Confused by the statistical terms used in our economic or market research articles and columns published on the APMF? The Electronic Statistics Textbook can be downloaded from the StatSoft site, or viewed as HTML pages.

From the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy Working Papers, a PDF paper worth reading for those interested in Indian business - "Creating an Environment: Developing Venture Capital in India"

China has almost 25,000,000 internet users, that's more than the whole population of small to moderately sized countries in the Asia Pacific such as Australia and Malaysia. And surfing behaviour is also different from that of Western countries where the Internet is usually accessed from home and work. Around one fifth of Chinese internet surfers use public cybercafes. According to the South China Morning Post the larger cities now boast more than 1,000 each. Lately, China has begun clamping down further on cybercafes, forcing existing outlets to re-register and news ones to register with a new list of regulations. Fines of up to 16,000 $US await cybercafes allowing customers to access "seditious" material as well as violent, gambling, and superstition-oriented sites.

Singapore became the worst performing stock market in the region year to date last week, pipping Hong Kong which boasted the dubious distinction for the last few weeks. However, Singapore has been one of the economies best able to catch the crest of the US NASDAQ driven recovery wave of recent days. Other "global economies" such as Hong Kong, and tech heavy stock markets such as Taiwan, Korea and even Japan also have posted impressive results. Concerns of continuing US economic weakness in the first quarter derailed a continuing recovery for those economies most dependent on exports such as Thailand and Malaysia. Yet throughout the first 3 months of the year, and despite the depressing stock market performance locally, Asian stock markets outperformed US markets.

Kuala Lumpur's old railway station saw the end of 90 years of service last week as the central hub of peninsular Malaysia train services. It's distinct Moorish architecture and colonial charm will now be lost on new train arrivals to KL, who will now deport at the considerably more utilitarian Brickfields station a quick shunt down the track.

Grumblings coming from many on the make up of the new Thai Airways International's board. Thai PM Thaksin's mates predominate. Thaksin, generally lauded by the local Thai business community for his efforts so far, continues to attract controversy relating to his personal financial dealings prior to his election, the last being the transfer of large amounts of money to his son. Given the slow machinations of most legal process in Thailand however, together with the prediliction of Thai voters to get bored with their PM's after 3 years and turf them out, most hope Thailand may well be spared the indignity of a sitting PM found guilty of financial shenanigans. Thaksin's main defence against allegations of fraud before the election was that he "didn't know" of the alleged illegal transactions, having left that to his underlings. We can only hope he is more diligent in overseeing the accounts of Thailand Inc.

And finally thanks to the ecellent Business magazine BizEdge for naming the Asia Pacific Management Forum one of the best 100 Business and Financial Sites for 2001. We didnt pay them.. honest...

Have a great weekend all...

Bangkok Thailand: Friday April 13th 2001

Bangkok has today turned into a ghost town, as similar to some other great national magnet cities of Asia like Beijing, Jakarta, and Manila, most people who work here, don't actually live here. It is estimated that half the population of Bangkok left the great hub to celebrate Thai New Year, or Songkran, with their families in the provinces this year. Business will be at a virtual standstill for 4 days at least as Bangkok empties out.

If you are not fully armed with a 50 Baht water pistol to a 350 Baht super space age soaker with ample water munitions, make sure you at least carry a bucket to return the greeting. Streets that for the last week have been full of workers have been replaced with children ambushing passer-by's with traditional water soakings.

Falling at the hottest time of the year, a Songkran drenching is relished by some, but not by all. Most laundries also close at this time. Bring two suits at least if you must visit the Kingdom this weekend.

As is our custom we have also soaked our logo with Bangkok water. It's Sawatdee Pi Mei for our Thai friends and a very happy and holy Easter for our friends from all Christendom as they observe the bittersweet Easter festival, symbolizing sacrifice for other's sins, and the miracle of the resurrection.

How much can a flying koala bear?: Old mate Dave Keenan, who helped with the Forum earlier this year in Kuala Lumpur, paases on the following item.. Seems that Ansett Australia were forced to choose almost the worst time to ground their 767 Fleet yesterday. Ansett Australia has come under increasing scrutiny by CASA, the Civil Aviation Authority of Australia for their maintenance procedures. According to the Financial Times, ten 767's were grounded and CASA has warned Ansett it was also considering withdrawing the airline's operating certificate. The Aviation industry throughout the Asia Pacific, if not the world, is facing an enormously challenging year from several fronts including high levels of debt, fuel prices, and decreasing profits. With Thai Airways and Malaysia Airlines in the middle of major management restructuring, and even mainstays Singapore Airlines and Qantas feeling the heat, it's no bed of roses at 35,000 feet this year.

Malaysia, a land of enormous business potential with an English speaking populace, a multi-cultural mileau potentially providing the very best of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Mat Salleh insight, a strategic location, and much more, continues to be shot in the foot by the very leaders they elect and they arrogant selfish élite they have developed.

The Malaysian élite are also feeling the heat, when in an effort to forestall yet another public demonstration of disaffection marking another anniversary of the jailing of ex DPM Anwar Ibrahim due this weekend, they detained at least 7 opposition leaders under the Internal Security Act (ISA), designed to forestall communist insurgency in the "Emergency" several decades back. According to the government, this time, opposition leaders were intending to deploy bombs and grenade launchers.

Watch out for bombs and flying grenades in KL: The Malaysian élite has used public fear (one of the most powerful motivators according to advertising theory) consistently as one of their key strategic weapons to maintain power for decades, escalating in the past few years. Election advertising inevitably includes images of violence from historical ethnic clashes, subliminally suggesting a relation between parliamentary opposition and internal violence and anarchy. A year back they warned the public not to attend opposition rallies because of inevitable violence. Their booty? One juvenile was detained for possession of a plastic toy gun. Many other examples exist, yet the resurrection of the ISA this Easter Week, raises the ante.

Mahathir himself is honest and direct - stating that "normal laws" were not used to detain the seven reformasi activists arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA), as that would require evidence, and that certain procedures and processes be followed. (See Malaysia Kini report) The ISA is far more effective...

The ISA allows for detention without trial, allowing a sitting government to detain any opposition that is posing a threat on the basis of their own subjective interpretation of a "threat to national security" . The government has followed a so far highly successful propaganda strategy to characterise any opposition to the government as anti-Malaysian, pro-foreigner, anti-Asian values, and seditious. Foreign ambassadors, including those from Indonesia and Singapore are rapped on the knuckles for even attending a meeting with opposition leaders, who are as "Malaysian" as anybody else.

It's enough to want you to yearn again for monarchies, where the value of fair debate is valued - and political opposition is given credit on an equal footing to "His Majesty's Government" as "His Majesty's opposition".

The message is clear, the reigning government assumes the role of King, Queen, defender of the faith, and the only party for "patriotic Malaysians". There is too much power in too few hands. The Westminster principle of separation of powers somehow has got lost.

The big question remains - Are Malaysians to be trusted to think for themselves, rather than being forever "protected" by an all-wise "Father-Knows-Best" élite. Knowing Malaysians for many years we know they can. We have seen the finest management skills displayed in Malaysia, and some of the smartest minds worldwide. The length of time the new breed of patriotic, smart and brilliant minds straining at the leash to deploy their skills for the betterment of Malaysia will remain happy with their intelligence being insulted by politicians and skills ignored by a moribund élite is limited...

Bangkok Thailand: Monday April 9th 2001

The Thai New Year (Songkran), officially runs from April 13th to the 16th, most obvious to the casual traveler by the increasingly hot days and the risk of unexpected soakings as children and adults who haven't grown up, chuck water at unsuspecting victims to celebrate the New Year. In fact, its started already as I sighted the first water attack on the weekend. The shops are full of space age designed plastic water pistols, some a foot or so long. If they stick to those it would not be so bad, but unfortunately, many prefer the plain old bucket full of dirty Bangkok water. If you must travel at this time, keep the car doors locked, and fore-go motorcycle taxis which leave you highly exposed.

Now how long ago was it that Songkran meant modestly dressed Thai ladies sprinkling Jasmine scented water over your right shoulder from small hand held bowls? Certainly that was well enough to wash away MY sins of the last year anyway. Bangkok business will slow down during this time, and will close late this week. In tourist towns such as Phuket, Chiangmai and Pattaya, the water chucking persists for around 2 weeks.

The Holy Week is already underway in the Philippines, with business closed today, and Christendom's most holy day (Good Friday), will see business in many Asian (and non-Asian) countries close down this Friday.

The mainly Muslim populated Southern provinces of Thailand have experienced sporadic radical separatist activity for around 45 years now, and Malaysia has worked closely with Thailand to prevent such minority sentiment from gaining a more popular appeal. From time to time however, terrorism erupts as of this weekend, when 4 bomb attacks, allegedly carried out by Middle East trained cells, resulted in the death of a child at Hat Yai station, and many injuries. To his credit, Thai PM Thaksin traveled straight to trouble spots, and rapped the intelligence authorities for failing to act on a warning received earlier this week.

More significant downward movement on the Asian stock exchanges today (Monday), especially pronounced on South East Asian bourses as they suffer a double whammy of the ever more likely prospect of declining world demand for their exports (esp. electrical and computer products), and competition from China as a low cost manufacturing center. (See comparative economic stock indices here, reflecting the major downturn in March and early April) Having lost the comparative price advantage, in general the previous tiger cub ASEAN economies have failed to develop other competitive advantages such as a pool of skilled workers, and the higher levels of transparency and accountability which could make up for it. Only Singapore, it's economy and stock market battered by the world crisis as others in recent months, provides a competitive position - yet the costs of doing business and living in Singapore provide a major barrier to many.

Still Singapore is one jump ahead as always. According to AFP, on the weekend, the Singapore government called for high powered economists to help the government formulate policies to enhance competitiveness. Salaries would be skin to private sector levels. ..And foreigners are certainly welcome to apply...

David Uren writes that The Manager On-Line, has relaunched with a new look. Thankfully still the same original insightful articles recommended for APMF readers. See for example:

• A tale of two hats - Big consulting firms are engaging in massive conflicts of interest as they start taking equity in their clients. Harry Onsman recounts a sad but true tale in which only the names have been changed.

• The leading indicators of performance by Harry Osman - History may be a guide to future performance, however better insights are gained from events taking place now, with consequences for the future.

• The pragmatic politics of trade by David Uren - Economists are making way for politicians in the negotiation of trade deals around the world.

• What does IT actually do? also by David Uren - The role of information technology in business can be a mystery, even to those asked to authorise investment in it. New thinking on productivity casts some light.

• The cost of capital to society by David James - The amount investors expect to get back has profound effects. Too greedy, and you get speculative bubbles. Too parsimonious, and the effort to save for retirement will sap growth.

Bangkok Thailand: Thursday April 5th 2001

The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index has been in severe downward mode for a week following the announcement of an economic stimulus package focusing on encouraging domestic spending, but this week has seen the index fall 2% Monday and 6% yesterday, and today is down over 1% 2 hours into trading. Explanations range from rumours that the currency peg may be shifted from 3.8 to 4.2, or just major disaffection with Malaysian economic direction. Last week, Malaysia put a bomb under foreign oil companies by imposing a ban on further licenses for outlets, allowing only government controlled Petronas to build further outlets. An unconfirmed report conveyed to us yesterday is that a cabinet minister is now calling on foreign oil companies one by one informing them that their existing outlets also have to be sold to Petronas.

The mostly foreign pull out in the stock market may well be based on companies panicking that there is now even more concern that foriegn investments in Malaysia are under threat from more cabinet decisions like the Time/SingTel backdown and this one - aimed at increasing domestic control of the Malaysian economy. All well and good, but it also decreases the control investors have over their own money...

Bangkok Thailand: Wednesday April 4th 2001

The Asian Development Bank is predicting overall Asian economic growth of 5% this year and 6% in 2001. They predict that Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea will be most impacted by a continuing US slow down.

Financier types around town are privately predicting that the current slide in the Baht, currently at around 45 Baht to the US dollar, will continue. Some predict it will hit the 50 Baht level soon. It's not only Thailand.... the Australian dollar is looking as a limp as the wrist of the Sydney Mardi Gras' homecoming queen, hitting 48c to the US dollar.

You know you've been in Thailand too long... when you refuse to eat rice dishes unaccompanied by that pongy fish sauce that revolted you so much the first time you tried it.

From the fact file: Singapore, with a population of only 3,000,000, is the region's fourth largest economy.

Those HR-ophiles resident or visiting Malaysia in mid May, may want to attend the two day seminar on Effective Staff Retention, run by our old mates from the Asian Business Forum. Always well organized, these seminars are designed for senior executives, and run in several Asian capital cities.

Ever run into a Web page with Asian characters that you would really like to read? Good news is that Altavista now offers free on line translation of web pages from Japanese, Korean and Chinese to English.

And for speakers of Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Indonesia can now translate English pages using Epodoman. The Singaporean site estimates there are 5,000 Malay Web sites worldwide. Malay, or variants therof, are spoken in Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. The site owners promise 75% to 80% accuracy, enough for a "quick undestanding of an article.

The move to an international Web, now making inroads into it's previously US-centric nature, is annoying Americans no end, according to Satire Web. "...The profusion of international news available on the Internet has made it increasingly difficult for the average American to ignore the rest of the world, a trend researchers say threatens Americans' long, proud history of disregarding anything not about them..." The piece continues.. "...Sensing a market opportunity, "Net Nanny", makers of "Net Nanny" filtering software, announced this week it will introduce NetNarrow, an English-only product that automatically filters out content that appears to be international...". Read more about this insidious and dangerous threat to the American Way of Life.

One of brighter ideas coming out of Indonesia these days is a plan reported by the Australian, to "kick Wahid upstairs" to become a "titular Head of State", handing government control to Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

As we have argued before, the former remains a highly respected figure, now unfortunately held back by physical handicaps, and like many Asian leaders, unwilling to loosen the lease on whatever power they inherit or win. Yet he is not deserving of the muckraking pits of government: better suited for statesmanship, while Megawati remains the only slightly viable alternative. The problem in Indonesia remains that only presently viable alternatives are the ambitious Amien Rais, whose admittedly wildy confusing statements hide a preference for creating a Muslim state, and perhaps backtracking from the reforms of Wahid and Habibbie - and Akbar Tanjung, seeded from the same Golkar party that sponsored the rise of the corrupt Soeharto regime. Amien Rais's party performed pathetically at the elections, though he continues to act as if he has a massive mandate.