Opinion, Khmer Times, 28 April 2023 (Link)
“Will Cambodia achieve its Shenzhen dream?”
There is no silver bullet to
sustainable development and industrialization.
In fact, there have been many
attempts to emulate Shenzhen. For instance, Indonesian President Suharto
visited Shenzhen in 1990 and wanted to re-create similar SEZ in Batam island to
take advantage of its proximity with Singapore just like the case in which
Shenzhen had prospered owing largely to Hong Kong. But the project did not take
off well as anticipated.
Shenzhen was created when China was relatively less
developed. With limited resources at its disposal, China could not afford
to spread them everywhere across the country. China decided to
focus the scarce resources to the development of Shenzhen SEZ, along with other
three SEZs, namely Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen to create success stories that
can stimulate other areas in China, and to spread, share and link the
development results with surrounding areas. Even among the four SEZs, the
successes have been uneven.
The 40 years of efforts are difficult to replicate. But
replication is not totally impossible either.
What we can clearly say is that the Shenzhen model too
had to face trials and errors, or like what the Chinese saying that goes, “cross
the river by feeling the stones”.
Shenzhen development is “gradual and adaptative”
experiment but not that without a proper planning. For example, in different
versions of Shenzhen master plans, the government has changed the so-called
“strategic emerging industries” in accordance with the gradual development of
Shenzhen in the global value chain.
The Shenzhen government has played a strong role as
supporter rather than regulators of private sector. It has invested in
infrastructure, facilities, and initiated activities to support boosting of
entrepreneurship. This kind of investment on facilities is not attractive to
private sector as the latter is more profit-oriented but it is important for the
country’s long-term industrialization.
Indeed, even if the motive is noble but this is not
without risk for the government either. Public investment needs a lot of
capital. For example, if Cambodia wishes to build virtual universities like in
Shenzhen, how do we make sure that universities agree to set up their satellite
campus in Sihanoukville? How do we make sure that Sihanoukville would have many
companies to create strong demand for those graduates? What if the construction
is completed, and there are no talents coming to Sihanoukville due to lack of
attractive jobs?
“Gradual and adaptative” approach is probably the rule
of thumb.
High cost adventure should be avoided.
For the government side, even if we could have a
perfect master plan, implementation is totally a different issue to dwell on.
Coordination across ministries and different layers of implementing agencies is
a realistic challenge for every government in the world. Mobilizing national
momentum towards specific direction requires robust budget commitment, clear
terms of reference for implementing agencies in different layers, and most of
all a powerful institution with supporting human resources to drive the
implementation process.
Beside an active and supportive government, private
sector also has their special role to play which is to take the lead in terms
of business and technological innovation. The question is how much Cambodia can
enlarge the “homegrown contents” when Preah Sihanouk Province will be linked
much stronger with the global value chain. Do we have good local companies to
support the SEZ eco-systems? Do we have human resources with enough skills as
required by the companies? How much Cambodia can supply homegrown materials
into the global value chain by utilizing Sihanoukville as exit point?
Lastly, people’s perception and mindset are important.
Could Cambodia re-create the “gold rush” investment climate? Can our people
fully adopt the “time is money” mentality and would be willing to work until
late at night like young people in Shenzhen, sacrificing their many long public
holidays?
The reverse engineering of
Shenzhen may require a whole-of-government approach to develop Preah Sihanouk
Province into becoming a real growth locomotive and strong economic pole to the
maximum of its potentials. To that end, we should avoid having over-expectation,
but we should not diminish our dreams too much that we can no longer have
dreams either.
Those dreams need to be
planned, and constantly revised and adapted according to new realities.
Maybe in the future Cambodian
people can also go to the moon. Why not? This is a Cambodian dream.
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