(EID-007) “CONVERGENCE OF THREE ECONOMIES”

Three economies fused together are definitely stronger than one, but could you imagine how much stronger it would be if were also to converge as one coherent and cohesive economy? This is the ideal that we should pursue, to blend together our agricultural, industrial and knowledge economies into one AIK economy.

Could you imagine an agricultural economy that is fully supported by an industrial and a knowledge base? Could you imagine how much stronger that would be? Going back to basics, we are still lagging behind in building large scale silos and dryers for our grains industries. Add to that the need to automate our grains milling and transporting infrastructure.

The one town, one product (OTOP) project of the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) is a good initiative, but it would be better if it were to follow the AIK model, meaning that it should promote industrial products that are supported by an agricultural base, and are complimented by a knowledge base.

By industrial products, I mean any product that could be produced using any manufacturing process. This could be handicraft products, but should ideally be made in a factory where economies of scale could be attained. By agricultural base, I mean any product that uses materials from agriculture, from animal husbandry, from fisheries and from forestry.

It is ironic to note that while we are trying to export our manufactured goods and knowledge based services, China is infiltrating our local markets with fruits and vegetables that we could have grown here in our own farms. We note with interest that many of these products are packaged well, indicating that these have gone through some manufacturing processes.

One way to converge our agriculture economy with our knowledge economy is to build databases that would enable us to make more intelligent decisions as to which agricultural products to import, and which ones we should just source out locally. One example is the importation of rice, wherein the government always claims to have a shortage, without presenting hard data about local production.

Learning from the experience of Taiwan, we should build canneries and tinplate industries in order to provide an industrial manufacturing base, in support of our agricultural producers. This time however, the government should just fund privately owned factories, instead of directly operating it.