Thailand - The Land Of Hubs

[george]

Hubba, Hubba, Hubba

BANGKOK:-- If it is true that a nation's goals define it, then this part of the world would appear to have a full-blown identity crisis.

Name any promising economic sector and the region's leaders will chorus that they want to be its top player.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is now intent on making Thailand the region's largest aviation hub.

Malaysia is working on becoming a fashion hub and ensuring that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's wife Datin Seri Endon Mahmood's beloved batik catches on.

In Singapore, the latest aspiration is to become a mecca for Islamic banking.

Southeast Asia now hosts a bustling, buzzing alphabet soup of hubs, from "A" for "aviation" to "V" for "venture capital". It enfolds all manner of industries - from biotechnology to chemicals, disk drives, education, fashion, finance, health care, media, oil rigs, tourism.... the list goes on.

Over the past few years, there has been no shortage of zeal from the region's countries to plant themselves on the map - and more importantly, on people's minds - as champions of some activity or other.

This fixation on hubs is easy enough to explain. Almost anyone can rattle off the name of the highest mountain in the world. But prompt them to name the second highest peak and they will likely be stumped (The answer: K2 in the Himalaya's Karakoram range).

In other words, you ain't nothing unless you are a hub (read: No.1).

Thus, it is hoped that a traveller standing in the immigration queue at Changi Airport walks taller, just knowing he has landed in Asia's aviation hub. He might be further tempted to spend his much sought-after dollars here, rather than elsewhere, if he is persuaded that this is the region's shopping hub.

He might also consider advising his relatives to enrol in a university here if informed that this is the premier education hub of Asia.

But one might ask in the same breath: How is it possible for one economy to be a hub of 101 activities? Is that sustainable? Or even desirable?

Saturday Special Report posed these questions to the man who choreographs Singapore's hub drive.

Ko Kheng Hwa, managing director of the Economic Development Board, says his job is to assure sceptics that Singapore's appetite for hubs is essential, appropriate and, happily, paying off.

He says: "We are a small country trying to serve a global market. We need a concentration of companies and activities so we have the scale to be competitive."

"If we are serious about engaging and promoting a particular industry as a growth engine, we have to be a hub."

"We need a concentration, a capacity and a marketplace that is way disproportionate to our domestic economy, and that is a hub."

He makes a persuasive case, if you follow his argument.

"If every Singaporean - including all the babies - were to buy a new mobile phone every year, the whole domestic consumption could not sustain a single cellphone factory."

"To give another example, we are an oil trading hub - dealing in USD100bn worth in physical trades every year and another USD100bn in derivatives. If we do not become a hub, how much oil do we need domestically? Not more than a trickle."

Developing scores of hubs is not just pragmatic but also necessary, he maintains.

"It makes sense for the economy to be diversified. One, we insulate ourselves against business cycles. Two, the more engines of growth, the more powerful we are," he says.

He has another interesting observation about hubs.

Like animals in a farm, they have a habit of multiplying.

A precision engineering hub, for instance, lays the groundwork for a country to become an electronics hub, simply because the first is a necessary prerequisite for the second.

Hubs, like good couples, mutually reinforce each other. "A strong manufacturing hub will stimulate demand for a logistics hub, for instance, ports," he says.

And multiple hubs create new opportunities.

"Singapore is a biomedical hub as well as an electronics hub. Such integration has made us a hub for medical devices," he points out.

Of all the jostling going on for hub titles in the region, the fight is most visible in the aviation sector right now.

The stakes are high, with huge investments and national prestige riding on them. So the intensity shows up in the headlines every other day as Asian cities race to build new terminals for low-cost carriers, refurbish and add capacity to existing airports.

In this arena, industry watchers say that Singapore looks likely to retain the crown, even in the hotly contested, fast-growing budget-travel segment.

But what, you may ask, is the impact of so many hubbing aspirations on a society?

An instructive lesson may come from Thailand in a few years' time.

Thaksin's team is now trying to use hubs to re-engineer the pyramid-shaped Thai society - where the poor form the largest base - into a diamond-shaped or an elongated pyramid structure, where the middle-income group is the biggest.

In his first 4-year term from 2001, Thaksin used a mix of cheap credit and populist schemes to boost the economy.

After his re-election last month, his administration has spoken of developing Thailand as a hub for food, fashion, tourism, automobile and healthcare industries that can generate jobs for the poor.

Industry watchers say hubbing is pivotal to Thaksin's plan to transform Thailand into a knowledge-based economy.

Soon, it will be revealed if all this hubba hubba pays off.

--The Straits Times 2005-03-21

[stumonster]

How about aiming for the 'HUB'of honesty ?

[Cheeky Farang]

Hub of

Corruption

Taxis

Suicides.

Tourist Police Volunteers

Road Deaths

Nose Picking

Any Country spring to mind ?

[The_Moog]

Thaksin should announce a 'crackdown on Hubs'

[ovenman]

Industry watchers say hubbing is pivotal to Thaksin's plan to transform Thailand into a knowledge-based economy.

I just don't see how that is ever going to happen without a thorough revamp of the Thai educational system. Wishing oneself over the mountain just isn't gonna get the job done. I don't see how Thailand has any inroads into becoming knowledge-based.

[ovenman]

Thaksin should announce a 'crackdown on Hubs'

Surely there must be some obscure military junta-written law from the 60s or the 70s that Mr. Big could dust off in which hubs were declared illegal, or at least off-limits between the hours of two and five o'clock in the afternoon.

[thaibebop]

What's wrong with a country wanting to be the hub of hubs? It's a lot better than just not caring or trying to keep things as they are. Sure a lot of things won't work out like they want them to but some will. And besides the dream has to start somewhere. All the 1st world country's today that enjoy so much wealth once had like aspirations and catch phrases. It's all a part of developing as a country, so lay off, will ya.

[xbusman]

How could they crackdown on hubs when Thailand is the hub of crackdowns? I think they have to crackdown on crackdowns before they can become the hub of hubs.

Time for my nap.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Thaksin should announce a 'crackdown on Hubs'

Surely there must be some obscure military junta-written law from the 60s or the 70s that Mr. Big could dust off in which hubs were declared illegal, or at least off-limits between the hours of two and five o'clock in the afternoon.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[The_Moog]

Thailand boldly declares it wants to be regional hub - no IS the regional hub of car assembly.

So why are cars so expensive here then?

[Golf]

Industry watchers say hubbing is pivotal to Thaksin's plan to transform Thailand into a knowledge-based economy.

I just don't see how that is ever going to happen without a thorough revamp of the Thai educational system. Wishing oneself over the mountain just isn't gonna get the job done. I don't see how Thailand has any inroads into becoming knowledge-based.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Like trying to row the boat in the bathtub? You're going nowhere!

Love your comment, ovenman.

Golf

Edited March 24, 2005 by Golf