Over the past few years, Japanese currency and hi-tech, export oriented business strategy , in the form of aid and investment, facilitated development and helped other regional countries to create their own economic growth in a way that few had experienced. At present the 1990’s Japanese recession had reduced regional development. This allowed South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, to play a relatively larger role in the area.

The Japanese/Chilean Connection

Today's Chile is in the midst of a development boom that is transferring its economic geography. It is one of South America's greatest success stories.  Not only has Chile reduced its poverty rate significantly, it has attracted massive foreign investment.   This is of particular significance as these new international connections enable the export-led Chilean economy to diversity and develop in important new ways.

Copper remains the single leading export, but many other mining ventures have surfaced.   In the agricultural sphere, fruit and vegetable production for export has soared since Chile's harvest production coincides with the winter farming lull in the affluent countries of the Northern Hemisphere.  Industrial expansion is occurring in Chile as well, with new factories manufacturing an array of goods ranging from basic chemicals to computer software.  In addition, seafood and wood products, especially paper, are contributing to the increase in Chile's earning.

Japan has taken note of Chile's rapid internationalizing economy and has become one of the
leading trading partners.  This relationship has designated Chile to become an "economic tiger of the Andes".  At this time, however, Chile's Pacific Rim developments seem more oriented toward its own hemisphere.  It has eagerly accepted the invitation of the United States, Canada, and Mexico to join the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  Its pacific Rim trading ventures await an elevation in economic conditions in the economic tigers of the Orient.

Ambassadors of Agriculture

As a result of the new free-trade requirements, stipulated by the World Trade Organization (WTO), that will be imposed by the turn of the century, changes in agricultural production has become critical for sustained economic development in the Caribbean region. The revised WTO regulations will abolish the preferential tariffs countries of this region have enjoyed for some of their products, especially their banana exports.  In addition, nutmeg and cocoa are facing substantial declines in production as well as a drop in demand on the international market.  As a result, their governments have launched an agricultural diversification program to cope with the situation.

The Republic of China (ROC) recently sent agricultural missions to five countries in the eastern Caribbean.  They were Saint Kitts/Nevis, the Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, the Grenadines and Grenada.  Taiwan already had extensive experience in tropical agriculture, both in Taiwan and abroad and readily answered their appeal for assistance.  Their experience included techniques needed to diversify crops.  At present the emphasis is on the cultivation of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, as well as aquacultural development and the raising of livestock.  Research farms and an aquaculture station were set up emphasizing shrimp hatching and a laboratory for tissue culture in Grenada.

Taiwan's agricultural advisors first determined the production potential of new crops, then
started planting demonstration plots and offered training programs for agricultural extension
officers and selected farmers. Agricultural engineers helped improve irrigation and drainage
facilities and lent assisted farmers with mechanizing operations.  So far, rapid progress has been made.  Some of the greatest successes have been with the development cherry tomatoes, sweet corn and asparagus.  Various fruits, including watermelons, grapes, pineapples, passion fruit, and wax apples show promise. Taiwan's advisors have also helped set up livestock experimental stations specializing in hog raising, feed improvement and the need to keep the islands free of foot-mouth disease.

A major problem is the distance from Taiwan as a market destination.  It has, therefore, become important for the Caribbean nations to encourage nearer entrepreneurs to explore investment opportunities in agriculture, tourism, and smaller and medium sized businesses.

The region's amenities offer beautify scenery, beaches and warm weather.  The governments have begun offering incentives and preferential treatment to lure capital from abroad, especially in the field of small-scale manufacturing.  Economic cooperation with Taiwan has resulted in an opportunity in which some business people can take advantage. (Source: The Caribbean Connection-Free China Review, August 1997).

Mainland China's Genetically Modified Crops

China's entry into the WTO could spur increased consumption and production of genetically
modified food as the country's agricultural market is opened further and domestic farmers
struggle to find ways to boost their productivity to battle increased competition. In the past, this revolutionary process, in which genes are transplanted between different organisms, plant or animal, had been ignored by China.

Now, China appears to be fertile ground for genetically modified agribusiness. There has been a rapid increase in the rate of Monsanto's GM cotton seeds in northern Hebei Province, where 90 percent of the cotton farmers are using these seeds introduced only two years ago. Monsanto now accounts for two percent of China's cotton seed sales. Although it was the first overseas company permitted to sell GM products in China, it is not stand alone in sales today.

Before, farmers in Heibei Province sprayed their cotton crops 10 to 12 years a year with a highly toxic organ phosphate insecticide without wearing protective clothing. After the introduction of the GM seeds, they do not have to spray, and the combination of higher yields and less money spent on insecticides allows them to make more money than before.

During the past few years, Chinese genetic scientists have won government approval to commercialize other crops. These include sweet peppers and tomatoes and research is continuing in wheat, rice, peanuts, cabbage and rapeseed. Nevertheless, one of China's leading researchers, Chen Zhangliang, said the central government is still cautious about allowing widespread planting of GM crops.

Others express fears that the increased use of GM crops in China will actually make farmers poorer because they will be forced to buy seed patents from multinational companies. This would put the fate of farmers in the hands of transnational companies who are only interested in profit. Also, farmers would have to specialize in only one crop, making them open victims to the market, rather than being able to choose to diversify planting crops. In addition, the widespread use of GM crops could lead to vast areas of single cropping. This would increase the danger of disease simultaneously wiping out vast tracts of land. Furthermore, there is a fear that the introduction of GM crops could wipe out existing species.
Source: http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/he...or_genetically_modified_crops.html   Yahoo! Asia News. April 16, 2000.

China: "Nothing More To Lose" - Urban Poverty

According to an article that recently appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review, most men and women who worked in the smelter, the cardboard factory and other plants in Shenyang city's Tiexi district for decades have lost their jobs. The Development Research Centre (DRC) and Asian Development Bank estimate there are 37 million urban poor - 12 % of the urban poor. The World Trade Organization membership and growing competition have brought new pressures.

The millions of jobless are part of a new growing populace of depressed men and women who are angry.  They were once the proud vanguard of the proletariat. Now, a growing number of rundown buildings show that the district's workers are idle. They are the former steel workers, miners and oilmen who had enjoyed extensive housing, health and education benefits for half a century. Now they are abandoned, and suffer a fate similar to that of workers in the post-Soviet Russia.

The root of the problem seems to lie in the move to reform. In the process of turning out cheaper goods, the state workers have been purged from the state-owned  mostly located in cities, especially in the "rust belt" of Northeastern China.

In the early days of dismissal, it was relatively easy to find new jobs. The employment situation has become "grim". Dependence on private sector for job creation offers little hope. Export manufacturing has become a hostage to global trade. Foreign problems such as rises in oil prices because of tensions in the Persian Gulf and west Coast United States coast problems are tensions beyond the Chinese government's power to control. Interdependence with the world will bring both huge rewards and future risks.

Note: For full coverage of information go to:  Far Eastern Economic Review, article written by David Murphy in Shenyang. November 7, 2002.

Protestors Plan to Disrupt the Group of Eight Summit In Japan

Protestors from different nations seek to disrupt the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank  meetings when it is held in Japan in July Y/2000. Japan will host the prestigious
summit on July 21-23 in Okinawa drawing the leaders from the eight major industrialized nations, including US President Bill Clinton and Russian president-elect Vladimir Putin.  The eight groups include, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

The mission of the protestors is to seek debt relief for poor countries. In early August, Japan had announced that it would cancel 1.3 billion dollars in outstanding debts owed by the world's 40 poorest countries but campaigners decried the move as misleading and inadequate.
Source: http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/he..._to_target_G8_summit_in_Japan.html    Yahoo! Asia News.
April 17, 2000.

The Retail Scene

It’s a supermarket, China’s latest middle-class attraction, where "CUSTOMERS ARE OUR TOP PRIORITY"! Campbell soup and Perrier water compete for space with rice and jars of Chinese
pickles. Cylinders of Pringles' potato chips stand beside bottles of locally made soy sauce. Refrigerated counters offer packaged dim sum alongside California ice cream. The new stores offer what western shoppers take for granted. Air-conditioning, bright lighting, and the unimpeded right to choose goodies from the shelves are still novel experiences in most places. in China but Quangdong Province’s more than 150 super markets have come into being, pioneering these goods.

Improved traffic flow allows shoppers to travel to supermarkets instead of to the corner shops. Small private mom and pop corner stores are feeling the pinch even though they stock the same brands and sell them for less. Customers tend to be young, educated, with small families and little spare time. Researchers concluded that these shoppers prefer the supermarkets where they are free to browse by themselves without being bothered by shop assistants. Nevertheless, Canton’s supermarkets seem less busy than their Hong Kong counterparts. This suggests that prices are still out of reach to the masses.

The Three Gorges Refugees Face Harsh Economic Reforms

The economic reforms that have already put millions of Chinese workers out of a job come as an added burden for those whose homes will soon be submerged by the construction of the Three Gorges dam. Approximately 1.3 million people are being shifted to higher ground, out of the reach of the rising waters. Many people will be reimbursed by the state but others, who have been housed by the companies they work for, will not be so lucky.

When Premier Zhu Romji assumed office in March 1998, the government pressed ahead with attempted to throw off the  financial burden of the old socialist-style welfare system. This action has thrown millions of workers at State-owned enterprises into redundancy, cutting them off from their traditional access to subsidized housing, health care and educational benefits.

As a result, many workers, underemployed through most of their careers, are finding it hard to retain and accept tougher conditions in the private sector, where opportunities are limited. In addition to these woes, the end of the collective system that was installed in 1950, workers for state enterprises who were housed nearly free by their employer, are being encouraged to become home owners.

According to the news media, China is scrambling to rehouse over a half million people as the Three Gorges dam project enters its "critical period." As of December last year, only 73 percent of the people due to be moved out of their homes in 1998 had gone while only 60 percent of new housing planned for the year had been completed.

Only 100,000 Chinese living alongside the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) have been relocated over the past six years. this suggests that the projects running behind schedule. Corruption, bribery and embezzlement of public funds in connection with the Three Gorges project has become a problem.

Development Problems in China's Cities

A growing number of Chinese living in China's rapidly developing cities are being forced to move out of their modest communities. The Chinese government has given developers the right to raze the neighborhoods and build luxury flats on the sites. Corruption is also a factor. The government favors the developers and allows them to buy property from the residents cheaply. Unlike many foreign countries, the Chinese government sets below-market prices for residents who are forced to make way for highways or other government approved projects and offers no channel for them to air their opinions. But residents say they have little choice as the government allows the developer to evict them and requires them to pay the eviction costs.

One family, being forced to move, live a stone's throw from Zhongguancuan--a high tech
dubbed China's future Silicon Valley. Their neighborhood is occupied by 1,000 families. The compensation the developer is offering (3800 yuan dollars per square meter) is not large
enough to buy comparable property. The only other option is eviction.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China says the forced property sales and relocations are causing much unrest in China. Next to job losses and investment scams, they are the biggest source of dissatisfaction with the government. This is a huge threat to social stability because it affects all classes of people. A majority of the housing-related complaints have to do with developers not providing temporary housing during the construction process or refusing to allow residents to move into newly-built flats at the promised price. There are also reports that people are being beaten and threatened and that developers have hired thugs to set fire to people's houses to force them to move.

The most serious report comes from the city of Xian in Northern China where 20,000 people
who had to relocate, remain homeless because the developer refused to let them move into
new housing unless they paid more money. Beijing, AFP Beijing, January 23, 2000.
Source: http://asiadailynews.yahoo.com/he...s_uproot_many__create_dissent.html

Results of the South China Seas Fishing Ban

A China-imposed fishing ban to prevent further depletion of fish stocks in the South China Sea has caused financial disaster for debt-ridden fishermen in Hong Kong. While China's decision to impose a two-month fishing ban in the South China Sea, beginning June 1st, is welcomed by environmentalists, the fishermen in the former British colony, an estimated 1,300 of Hong Kong's 4,000 registered fishing vessels, are facing financial disaster. The Hong Kong government will not compensate as the ban was made by the Chinese government on the mainland. A spokesman for the Agriculture and Fisheries department says there is no ground for compensation.

Hong Kong's total catch in 1998 was equivalent to 74 percent of the local seafood consumption and amounted to 180,000 tons, with an estimated wholesale value of 2.1 billion dollars. Not all marine catches come from the surrounding Hong Kong waters, and local fishermen have in past years, resorted to buying sea catches from neighboring countries. In recent weeks, Chinese fishing fleets have ventured into territorial waters claimed by the Philippines. The Philippine navy has encountered these fleets and sank one boat causing an uproar from Beijing. This incident occurred near a reef known as Mischief Reef to the west of the island of Palawan.

China's ban comes after years of over-fishing. This has badly depleted marine resources, caused a decline in the output of aquatic products, and decreased fishermen's income. As a result of the moratorium, only a few members of the Hong Kong Fishermen Association have been able to find jobs on land during this two month span. To make matters worse, Hong Kong is in the midst of its worst recession in 13 years and is dogged by a record unemployment. According to the secretary
of HKFA's Cheung Chau island branch, in 1998, up to 1,100 fishermen with fishing vessels had debts totaling 900 million Hong Kong dollars (116 million US). These debts were mainly loans from banks and government to buy bigger and hi-tech ships to sail farther seas due to depleted local fisheries. The catch has been fewer each year.

Younger people no longer want to work as fishermen. Local fishermen have been turning to cheap laborers from the mainland. The government, meanwhile is implementing a 100 million dollar project for the deployment of artificial reef in marine parks and other sites in Hong Kong waters to address the depletion in fisheries resource.  So far, the government is only studying how to help the fishermen to return to operation once the ban is lifted.

Asia at the Crossroads: An Update

Although the macroeconomic situation  has improved in East Asia (a gradual bottoming out and up turn of key economic indicators), the region is faced with a precarious external environment. The recession has been most severe in some countries, especially  Indonesia, Thailand, Korea and Malaysia. Nevertheless, Thailand and Korea have shown the clearest signs of recovery. The Philippines recovery has been more modest than elsewhere. The future of Indonesia remains fragile as a result of political uncertainties. The social impact of the crisis is still unfolding and could get worse before it gets better. The role of the World Bank Group will be significant in the future. (Taken from notes prepared for a presentation to the World Bank Board of Executive Directors by JM Severino, VP.Complacency is a major risk for all).

Japan's inability to ease out of a prolonged slump and growing protectionist calls in the United States pose risks to crisis-hit Pacific rim economies poised for recovery according to a report from the Pacific Economic Co-operation Council's (PECO) annual 1999 report. The report said that In the United States, which faces presidential elections in 2000, an increasing trade deficit is prompting calls for protectionism, and a downturn in the bullish US stock market could dampen US demand for imports. From "Japan, US Economies Pose Risks to Pacific Rim Recovery". Singapore Yahoo News Headlines, June 8, 1999.

Complacency is a major risk for all. The social impact of the crisis is still unfolding and could get worse before it gets better. The role of the World Bank Group will be significant in the future.

The Brunt of the Asian Economic Crisis (Impact of Labor Rights and Migrant Workers in Asia)
Source: http://www.hrw.org/reports98/asia/br/

 Australia's Economic Pressures

Australian's are concerned about the global tendency to create mammoth regional trading blocs such as the North American Free Trade Association, consisting of the United States, Canada, Mexico and others; the  European Union (formerly the European Community) which will eventually include parts of Central/Eastern Europe; the ASEAN nations of Southeast Asia; and the inflrmal "yen bloc"
in Asia that is headed by Japan. The problem is that these blocs might exclude Australian products from preferential trade treatment or eliminate them from certain markets altogether.

Currently, Japan buys more beef from Australia than from the United States. Regardless, the threat remains. Even in the islands of the Pacific, an area that Australia and New Zealand generally have considered their own domain for economic investment and foreign aid, investments by Asian countries are beginning to erode Australia's sphere of influence.

Although stressful historic periods such as World War II drew the English speaking countries of the South Pacific closer together and closer to the United States, recent realignments of the global economic system are creating strains. The United States has pressured Japan to take steps to ease its trade imbalance with the United States by buying coal at its higher price rather than at Australia's lower price. This has already created resentment against the United States.

Tunatown, Philippine Islands

General Santos City, located at the southern tip of Mindanao, on the edge of the Celebes Sea, is fast becoming one of the world's most important seafood centers. General Santos is a city that didn't exist 60 years ago. Now it is one of the fastest-growing cities in the Philippines. It has a strategic location at the crossroads of the prime tuna fishing grounds in the South Pacific. The Celebes Sea is a major spawning ground for migrating tuna stocks and lies just offshore. Also, a combination of cheap boats, efficient, low-cost crews and rising tune prices contributed to the success of this site. This is a story of fast fortune, fast-moving fish and disputed borders.

With a population of 400,000 it boasts a brand new $50 million airport (the second largest in the Philippines), a new highway that runs from the shores of Sarangani Bay and a wireless telecommunications system with Internet access, all of which has been built in the past three years. It also has a two-level, lighted golf range.

Behind this economic boom is the smell of fish. Its seafood plants line the western shore of
Saragani Bay. It is the homeport to 5,000 fishing boats and some 25,000 fishermen. In 1998, a
new $16 million Fishport, built with a loan from Japan's Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund, opened. It features market halls, cold storage, mammoth ice machines, and a custom-processing plant for small exporters. The new fishport is expected to attract Indonesian and Taiwanese boats.

Unfortunately, fishermen began chasing the fish farther and farther offshore, sailing into a
confusing maze of the overlapping disputed 200 mile limits. With thousands of islands strewn
across the vast archipelagos of the eastern South Pacific, defining territorial waters became no easy task. However has the largest navy gets control of the best fishing grounds, in this case - Indonesia. As more Filipino fishermen fanned into the Celebes Sea, they were arrested by the Indonesian navy. One problem is that Manila owes a large debt to Indonesia when the latter helped negotiate a peace treaty with Mindanao's Muslim rebels, ending a 30 year bloody conflict.

Although the Indonesians complain of Filipino poaching, the Filipinos complain about the
Malaysians, Japanese and Taiwanese boats that poach fish in their waters. The Philippine Navy lacks adequate resources to patrol its huge fishing zone.

An additional problem stems from other dangers closer to home. There are so many pirates, few Filipinos risk fishing there. In Indonesia, Filipino fishermen are often detained or beaten up, while in the Philippines, they are killed by the pirates. They are often murdered at sea when their boat owners refuse to pay a ransom.

Nevertheless, General Santos is not ready to surrender its position as the new center of the Asian tuna trade. The industry is at the forefront of the production of sashimi quality frozen tuna that is processed with tasteless smoke to stabilize the red meat color.

Although the boom may be slowing and politics of tuna fishing is more precarious than ever,
General Santos is positioned to be at the forefront of the South Pacific tuna industry. It is
expected to displace Bangkok as the tuna capital of the South Pacific because it is closer to the prime tuna fishing grounds. Also, there is a resurgence in shrimp fishing. http://www.mindanao.org/news/thismo/tunatown.html

Japanese Cultural Transplants - frozen pizzas, eBay/NEC Japanese Web Auctioneers
          (Bringing American foods, selling designer-brand clothes and other merchandise to Asia)

Merle Aiko Okawara, a native of Hawaii, has been named president of eBay Inc.'s Japanese unit as it launched its Japanese language online auction site. She is a 58 year-old pizza queen of Japan, owning her own company of frozen pizzas. But her new adventure began when late last year, she got a call from an investment-banker friend who had attended school with eBay's chief executive officer, Margaret Whitman. The friend told her that eBay was looking for a bicultural entrepreneur to head its new Japanese unit. Intrigued, Mrs. Okawara flew to eBay's San Jose, California headquarters for a weekend, and soon signed on. She reasoned that online auctions and selling pizzas aren't that different because "if you provide good service or products and can satisfy customer's needs, that could add to the bottom line".

Although Mrs. Okawara knew she had a lot of catching up to do, she decided to take on the challenge.  In the past yard, sales in Japan were unheard of. Today, as thriftiness becomes trendy, flea markets, second-hand goods stores and pawn shops have been sprouting all over the nation. Along with eBay, a slew of U.S. highfliers, from Autobytel.com to e*Trade Group Inc. are flocking to Japan. The e-commerce market is in its infancy but according to Access Media International Inc., a Tokyo research firm, it has plenty of room to grow. Japan's Internet population increased by 28% to 18 million users in 1999.

 Mrs. Okawara will certainly had challenges to overcome in Japan that eBay has not faced in the United States. This company is a bit late in entering the game in Japan. Giant competitors like Yahoo! Inc's Japanese unit, set up auction sites months ago, after studying the successful model eBay created in the U.S. She is optimistic that she will soon have amass following. A big distinction for eBay 's that the company's Japanese-language site is in its ability to link customers to many of the four million items listed daily on its U.S. and other sites. What's more, 16,000 Japanese have already registered as customers of eBay's U.S. site.

But Mrs. Okawara has great experience in bringing the American life style to Japan. It runs in her family: her father, Hawaiian born Yetsuo Higa, opened the Pepsi-soft drink franchise in Japan; her brother, Ernest Higa, runs the Domino's Pizza Chain and her husband, Takeshi "shin" Okawara, is president of Japan's Kentucky Fried Chicken operation.

She is a fluent Japanese speaker, and has adjusted her pizza and her management style to suit Japanese tastes. Finding that Japanese diners were unfamiliar with tomato sauce and though the cheese "looked and tasted like soap", she made her seven inch pizzas with less sauce and milder cheese. Today, her company, JC Foods Co. has annual sales of 497 million and is one of Japan's largest frozen pizza makers.

Once again, Mrs. Okawara is altering her management style, this time from that of "old economy" pizza maker to that of Internet entrepreneur. She is no longer spending her weekends golfing with her bankers. Now she is surfing the web. Also, instead of emphasizing such Japanese etiquette as face-to-face meetings and consensus building, eBay Japanese managers communicate via e-mail and zap out answers faster than it takes to warm a frozen pizza. It is "Internet time".
Source: "Pizza Queen of Japan Turns Web Auctioneer", The Gazette News.  Business Section. Colorado Springs, March 8, 2000 and Business Insight Japan Magazine web site:
http:// www.bijapan.com/1998/sep/zashi/dm18.htm

Another Success Story: Yoshiko Shinohara, one of the most prominent business women in the world.

In 1996 World Business Magazine selected Catherine Makino as one of the 50 most prominent
business women in the world. In 1997, she was voted leading female entrepreneur of the world by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners in the United States.  Today her Tempstaff Company, now in its 25th year, is the second largest temporary employment agency in Japan. Over the past two years her agency has grown by 40 percent, did about
$475 million (U.S.) in business last year, and has more than 600 million yen
($4 million U.S.) in capital.

Currently, her 70 employment agency offices spread across Japan, plus three overseas offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Los Angeles-Shinohara. There is a regular staff of 560, finding jobs for 162,000 registered temps. Her company provides domestic and foreign companies with clerks, computer operators, accountants, sales people, translators, marketing researchers, home and nursing caretakers, educational workers, and other workers sought after by the business world. She is planning even further expansion.

A major spur to her company's growth has come with Japan's catching on to the "downsizing bug" in the Western world. The traditional Japanese notion that employees-males, at least should be able to count on cradle to the grave security with an employer is disappearing. Major companies are eagerly seeking temporary workers, who get paid in straight cash, without any costly packages of lifetime benefits. As a result, Shinohara's immediate top goals are to find jobs for over-50 middle-management workers, who are losing their jobs at record rates.

Yoshiko Shinohara, started her career from the "bottom up".  After a failed marriage and a stint of four years as a low-level clerk for Mitsubishi, she traveled abroad. She studied languages and secretarial skills. After getting a job as an executive secretary assisting the president of a temporary agency in Australia, she began thinking of a more permanent future for herself.

She returned to Japan at the age of 38 and found that Japanese companies had few attractive offers. Figuring she had nothing to lose, she decided to open her own company and used some previously purchased properties as collateral to borrow enough to keep herself afloat as sole owner of Tempstaff.

Shinhara feels that women who want to succeed in business should start up their own companies. She feels she has not been discriminated against because she's woman, but thinks this is because she owns her own company and isn't competing with men for promotions. Nevertheless, men over 50 years-of-age don't like women who speak up, so she speaks very softly in a roundabout way in business meetings. Her brothers did not encourage her business plans and still do not acknowledge her success. But today's multi-billion-yen annual volume plainly tells of her success.

She hopes to have Tempstaff concentrate on medical fields by offering more medical assistance for the elderly, as well as related services for the physically and mentally challenged. The death of her 92 year old mother, who was in the hospital for a year before she died, caused her to realize that today's aging society will need more workers to help the elderly.

Her philosophy for anyone wanting to succeed in business is, "The key to success is never give up what you've started. Work hard, and always move forward, no matter how small the step."
Source: "eBay and NEC announce Joint Venture in Japan". February 17,2000. Web site:
http://www.nec.co.jp/english/today/newsrel/0002/1701.html

Offbeat Asian Entrepreneur Ignites Sonic Boom on Internet

Sim Wong Hoo, the founder of Creative Technology, LTD is making the most of his assets. For example, take a look at a chapter in his new book, "Uses of Saliva". He states that "you can use it as a makeshift eraser to erase a pencil mark, or it is very effective against fungi-related itches". He is truly an eccentric entrepreneur.

He is also famous for his book, Chaotic Thoughts from the Old Millennium, It has become a best seller. Now Mr. Sim is salivating over an even more valuable prospect: using his soundcard to pry open the Internet entertainment market. With music, games, video and audio chat rooms driving much of the web's growth, a corporate battle is breaking out over who will control the sound systems. Mr. Sim has a prime location inside the PC and their are millions of audio-minded customers to make a grab for the market.

In recent months Mr. Sims launched one of the net's most popular phone services, called Media Net. It allows customers to make long-distance calls over the web, and to alter their voice from man to woman, during the call. Creative also has a cult hit with teens in the U.S. with its lava program, which lets PC users make their own psychedelic music videos in just minutes complete with Jello colored mushrooms that bounce to the beat.

Mr. Sims secret weapon with all of these new ventures is his popular SoundBlaster card. The soundcard seems to be just the beginning!
Source: The Wall Street Journal's MarketPlace, Monday March 6, 2000 B1.

Oil Found Off Palawan in South China Seas

Officials of the Shell Philippines Exploration (SPEX), accompanies by Energy Secretary
Mario Tiaoqui, have announced that they found 200 million barrels of oil in Malampaya, 30 million considered recoverable.  The president was told that the oil sample from Malampaya was a light crude and similar to that found in Nido, Palawan.The Philippine president, Estrada, said that this new oil find could translate to an initial production of 20,000 to 25,000 barrels per day by mid-2001 and a potential of 50,000 barrels per day by 2003.

The managing director of SPEX, said strong gases had been observed coming out of the wells. SPEX is working with Texas Oil Co (Texaco) and the Philippine National Oil Co in developing the project. The project costs about $4.5 billion, making it the largest single investment in the Philippine's natural gas history.

The first gas from Malampaya is expected to flow through the pipes in October 2001. The gas would be purchased by power plants which in the past relied only on petroleum. The power plants are expected to provide 30% of Luzon Island's power requirement by 2002. (Related article below)

Source:  http://www.newsflash.org/2000/05/hl/h1012102.html   Headline News Philippines, Malacanang, May 7, 2000.

Engineering Feat on way to N-Western Palawan

Subic Bay, Freeport, May 30, 2000. The so-called "concrete gravity structure (CGS)" which weighs 85,000 tons and built by Shell Phils, Exploration B.V. (SPEX) at a cost of $150 million, was expected to reach the waters of Palawan by May 31st. It was successfully towed out of its casting basin in Redondo Peninsula where the structure was constructed by more than 1,3000 workers starting in late 1998. As reaches the Malampaya natural gas field, it will be ballasted and sunk onto a pre-prepared seabed more than 3,000 meters below sea level.

It will be used as base of a production platform that will extract an estimated 2.6 trilliion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to fuel 2,7000 megawatt of power for Luzon for 20 years starting October 2001.

Source: http://www.newsflash.org/2000/05/hl/h1012183.htm    PHNO: Headline News Philippines.

Hamamatsu, Japan's Famous products - Yamaha, Susuki, Honda, Kawai and others.

Hamamatsu is an industrial city, however, farming, fishing and forestry flourish thanks to the mild climate, good soil, plentiful rain, and hard working inventive farmers. Its other main products include mandarin oranges and musk melons, vegetables such as celery and onions, eels, snapping turtles, and lavar (seaweed), and cedar and cypress wood.

It is considered by most Japanese to be in the "middle of Japan" due to its equal distance from Tokyo and Osaka. It is a vital link for Japanese industry and for other manufacturing operations. It is approximately two hours from both Tokyo and Osaka by train. It is also open to the sea and provides ideal conditions for aqua culture. To the north are the fotthills of the Japanese Southern Alps, well tended producers of cedar and other fine lumber. To the east is the Tenryu River that provides water and hydroelectric power.

Hamamatsu is located in the "Enshu region of Japan and is a city of more than 560,000 inhabitants. This makes it the second largest city in the Tokai area.

For more information one can look up webmaster@www.hamamatsu.tokai-ic.or.jp