Monday, July 13, 2009

The Deindustrialisation Doctrine

In the wake of Wall Street's debacle, Jeff Immelt, chairman and chief executive of the General Electric Company, exhorts policymakers and business leaders to "drive competitiveness" by "improving the manufacturing structure" and to "draw on 230 years of ingenuity to renew the country’s dedication to innovation, new technologies and productivity".

In short, he is merely suggesting that countries do not dance to the tune of trendy sirens forever. John Rose, chief executive of Rolls-Royce, made a similar call previously in England. Unlike, say Luxembourg's foundation, Singapore's foundation does not look shaky because, in typical fashion, it has sought to review its economic structure permanently while unleashing vibrant SMEs and benefiting from international and regional integration.

Mauritius will be wise to follow suit instead of relying on the same toxic voices.

11 comments:

Bruno said...

I seem to notice that you do not get a large number of comments even though your posts are very instructive and interesting. Could I please know why you are blogging? Do you want your message to be heard? Or do you want to set up a large traffic blog? It seems your blogging strategy is not working so far.

Some constructive advice:

Try to implement a professional looking blog template. You ave loads of e.g. on the Mauritius Blog List.

Also, I found out that if you regularly comment on other blogs, the other bloggers frequently comment on yours as well.

Hope it helps.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

I think we're doing ok given that some of the most popular sites in Mauritius barely get more than a handful of comments. But we would like to thank you for your advice. And watch out for our comments on other blogs soon ;-)

Bruno said...

No Sanjay, the popular blogs get a lot of comments! Check for yourself:

Island Crisis
Yashvin's Blog
Morina
Priscus Former
Carot mad man

Anonymous said...

Moi aussi fatigué de la rhétorique des accapareurs!

KD

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

I've checked the other blogs rapidly and indeed they get a lot more comments than we do. Although I don't think we will ever be able to make, let's say, economics be as popular as horse-racing tips we are happy with the total level (on and off blog) of feedback we receive from our posts. Having said that your points have been well noted. Thanx Bruno.

Yashi said...

I think you are not that popular because you talk a lot sense!! A big chunk of the Mauritian population are normally devoid of critical and rational thinking.

I am already a fan of this blog by the way. Very cutting edge.

And hey, you don't need to be massively popular, as long as you write great articles, you will have a small group of people commenting constructively rather than just saying hi or just agreeing in general like in other blogs.

SR said...

We are glad that you find the blog profitable Yashi.

Anonymous said...

Right! Isn't that the same GE which needed to have the government bail his company out??? Yeah, that was very innovative!
The guy is running a company producing things and financing his clients to get them off his hands at the end of the factory line.
I don't see how that is so much different from GoM which is always on its knees begging for money.

Anonymous said...

Indeed the similarities between GE and GoM are startling!
GE's revenues are based on GE Capital's ability to finance its sales.
GoM built and marketed its IRS scheme based on the amount of money people could avoid paying to their respective tax man from making "investments" through Mauritius platforms.
Indeed when the finger was pointed at Mauritius by the US IRS and the EU tax man at Mauritius being a tax heaven... GoM respond was "Oh no, we are a Sustainable Paradise!"
OK let's pool out all the IRS funds and change a few points on the double taxation treaties and see how sustainable a Paradise Mauritius is!
archeologists are busy looking for Dodo skeletons now... in the future they might go there looking for human remains of that rare bread which used to speak Dodo Kreol!

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

4 years later we have about 3,500 comments on this blog. Not bad at all. And most of them are not exactly mickey mouse ones.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Maybe I should invite Vladimir to write something: his op-ed in the NYT has already attracted 3,000+ comments. In one day!