Denmark First, Japan Last At Helping Poor Nations

[homesweethome]

Denmark tops list of those helping poor nations; Japan last


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050830/bs_afp/usglobaldevelopment_050830191048

Japan ranked at the bottom of the 21 nations, and was seen as especially weak on matters of trade and migration.

"Japan's barriers to exports from developing countries are the highest in the (list) -- driven mainly by rice tariffs -- and its foreign aid is the smallest as a share of income," the report said. "Japan also has a poor environmental record from the perspective of poor countries and admits very few immigrants."

[AssKissinger]

'Helping'... What a crock of shit. Every little bit of 'help' just digs their holes that much deeper.

[Jack]

Statistics like this one ignore the fact that Japanese companies are the largest employers in poor countries, thus helping those countries and people much more than Denmark or other impotent countries like Canada.

[homesweethome]

Statistics like this one ignore the fact that Japanese companies are the largest employers in poor countries, thus helping those countries and people much more than Denmark or other impotent countries like Canada.

It might be true that Japanese companies employ people in developing countries, the reality is that the net benefit/loss to these countries is in the loss, big time.

This is a difficult issue but in the big picture the presence of Japanese companies and multinational enterprises with the globalization of finance and trade has resulted in a net loss for most of the developing and even in some cases the developed world economically, politically, and socially.

http://www.aabss.org/journal2002/ElMefleh.htm

The IMF emphasis on fiscal policy discipline for developing countries before making institutional reforms was a misguided policy that led to higher unemployment rates, poverty, and lower real wage rates. The number of people in poverty continued to increase. Income inequality between the advanced industrialized countries and developing countries, and within individual countries is increasing. Governments in developing economies deregulated labor markets, reduced government spending on social services, opened their economies for foreign trade and investment, and privatized public assets. These actions led to a further increases in unemployment and poverty rates. The openness of these developing economies to foreign trade and investment should not be the goal by itself, but rather an instrument to be used wisely to reduce poverty and improve the standard of living. Other aspects of globalization will be worth investigation in depth in terms of their impact on women, child labor, branding, technological advancement, industrial clustering, environmental regulations, agricultural subsidies, and financial instability in developing economies.

[Socratesabroad]

Statistics like this one ignore the fact that Japanese companies are the largest employers in poor countries, thus helping those countries and people much more than Denmark or other impotent countries like Canada.

It might be true that Japanese companies employ people in developing countries, the reality is that the net benefit/loss to these countries is in the loss, big time.

I'd actually side more with HSH on this one. I've seen no stats on Japanese companies being "the largest employers in poor countries" so I'd like to know what evidence you're citing, Jack.

The presence of a Japanese firm does have advantages, like welcome foreign investment and a source of employment for locals. The flipside, though, is that a fair portion of management is not local but brought in from Japan (at least in the cases of several J-manufacturers I've seen here in China). So while the lower job rungs may be open to locals, the higher ones are not.

European and US firms tend to employ locals as management more (check out Mulboyne's links in the Yellow Fever thread), so Western firms may be preferable to their Japanese counterparts in this respect.

[GuyJean]

The flipside, though, is that a fair portion of management is not local but brought in from Japan (at least in the cases of several J-manufacturers I've seen here in China). So while the lower job rungs may be open to locals, the higher ones are not.

I was just about to bring up that same point; importing management and using the locals for cheap labor.. When in reality, from what I've experienced, an efficiently run company would have the opposite dynamics; foreign management with Japanese employees, mostly women. He, he..

GJ

[Blah Pete]

I was in singapore and Malaysia for 4 years taking care of Japanese manufacturing companies. My two biggest customers had about 150-200 employees and any position above supervisor was Japanese. At one company there were about 30 Japanese. In contrast a US company in Singapore making the same product and twice the number of employees had three Americans including one guy who was a local hire.
What ends up happening is all the engineers and good employees leave after their 3 year bond (another story) is up for US, Euro or local companies. Japanese companies don't have a good reputation overseas and are mostly staffed by recent grads/entry level types.

[Jack]

I think you are confusing two different issues. First of all, the thread talks about helping poor countries and the starving. My point is that the downtrodden and starving would be very happy with a regular paying job in a glass factory, or whatever assembly work there might be. I'm sorry that I cannot provide a source for what I said in my earlier post regardin Japanese companies being the largest employers in developing countries, I believe I reda it in The Economist of somewhere. But be that as it may, if a Japanese company opens up a distribution centre in the Congo and creates jobs for the starving, it matters little that managers are Japanese.

You would be unbelievably naive to think that thos countries have people capable enough to hold senior management positions. If you want uniformity in quality as the Japanese do, having Japanese managers runningfactories is critical. For America where quality matters little but cost matters a lot, they would be more open to hiring cheaper local managers because their ultimate objective is low cost, not high quality. Japanese mentality is quality first.

One example is a discussion I had a few years ago with the manager of ANA in Chicago -- a Japanese man. ANA could not find a catering company in Chicago that could provide meals of high quality that ANA was looking for so the company use to double up on its meals in Japan for the return trip. Until a year after the initiation of service they could come to an agreement with a local supplier to provide meals of that quality. This came about when I wrote ANA's head office complimenting them of the exquisite meals in economy class I had on a flight from Chicago to Tokyo.

Don't confuse creating jobs for starving people and hiring locals for management jobs. The guys with an empty bowl in their hands are hardly the types to run multi-billion dollar enterprises.

[GuyJean]

Japanese mentality is quality first.

I think you mean 'Japanese' way first.

GJ

[Socratesabroad]

Sorry about the brief intermission. Work called, and given the rent and school fees, I had to answer.

And where shall I begin...

I think you are confusing two different issues. First of all, the thread talks about helping poor countries and the starving. My point is that the downtrodden and starving would be very happy with a regular paying job in a glass factory, or whatever assembly work there might be.

True, a job is good thing for someone out on the streets begging or what have you. But the reality is that such a job isn't going to come from a Japanese firm. The vast majority of Japanese foreign investment goes to "poor countries" like the US and nations in Europe. In Asia, Japanese MNCs tried moving into lesser-developed countries but pulled pack. Instead, they opt for China, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, etc. - hardly the most squalid conditions.

Sure, I whinge, but my life here in China hasn't been reduced to living in a grass hut just yet.

But be that as it may, if a Japanese company opens up a distribution centre in the Congo and creates jobs for the starving, it matters little that managers are Japanese.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Only problem is a that most Japanese firms going abroad aren't going to the Congo, they go mostly to Europe and the US. Granted, though, that some do relocate to developing countries. Second problem is that these J-firms aren't in distribution, they're in manufacturing, and especially chemicals. Factory setups require certain infrastructure (electrical, water, distro) and the potential to revamp/improve that infrastructure, so J firms gravitate toward established cities/suburbs, not one-well villages.

You would be unbelievably naive to think that thos countries have people capable enough to hold senior management positions.

This has to be one of the most asinine things I've heard in a while.
People in Asia will work for less in comparison to their Japanese counterparts, but they aren't lacking in ability/capability.
Their education is comparable - many college textbooks, after all, are copies from the US and Europe. Which explains why grads get accepted to MBA programs in the West, do work outsourced from the West and Japan, produce foreign goods on an OEM basis, or run successes like the Baidu search engine.

Don't confuse creating jobs for starving people and hiring locals for management jobs. The guys with an empty bowl in their hands are hardly the types to run multi-billion dollar enterprises.

And you shouldn't confuse relocation of a Japanese chemical plant - staffed by Japanese management - to Thailand with actual aid & assistance to impoverished nations.

[homesweethome]

[This has to be one of the most asinine things I've heard in a while.
People in Asia will work for less in comparison to their Japanese counterparts, but they aren't lacking in ability/capability.
Their education is comparable - many college textbooks, after all, are copies from the US and Europe. Which explains why grads get accepted to MBA programs in the West, do work outsourced from the West and Japan, produce foreign goods on an OEM basis, or run successes like the Baidu search engine.

Don't confuse creating jobs for starving people and hiring locals for management jobs. The guys with an empty bowl in their hands are hardly the types to run multi-billion dollar enterprises.

I was sent to do rural development work in rural Indonesia some years ago and I can testify that the educational level of the average grass skirt native was comparable to any college graduate in Japan on a working level knowledge of basic math, science, chemistry and agriculture. They are smart people and should not be underestimated. The problem however is capital investment, who's going to do it? Obviouslty the ones with capital. The Japanese companies came in to the area I was working in and at first everyone thought it was going to be heaven on earth, then the reality set in. All they got out of it was a few temporary heavy manual labor jobs for the strongest men. Eventually these very sharp people realized the Japanese were only after the natural resources of their land and there wasn't much they could do about it except try to cope with the fallout of what these enterprises did (under UN auspices I should add). I was left with trying to help them cope with the environmental destruction left by the Japanese. It was heart wrenching to see how their lives and livelyhood could be so easily destroyed by those with the money and power.

Believe me nobody locally except for a few government officials and land owners benefitted from having the Japanese move into their jungle and they were left with the ecological burden of trying to put things right. Very bitter and exasperating experience.

[blackcat]

yes the original link was the truth here, because it took many factors into consideration. immigration and environmental are interesting points, japanese are happy to have thier companies in other countries as it opens new markets (markets they dont open at home tho!) and the management will ALWAYS be japse. because they have the brainwashed belief that japanese = quality...thats why they only eat japse. rice!

they are clearly the most selfish nation.