The CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation, Yuen Pau Woo, wrote the following article on BC's role as the Pacific Gateway. He writes that a gateway is not simply having the most beautiful ship port or the highest tech airport (the hard infrastructure that defines the gate), but also the very important soft infrastructure like human capital, innovation and networks. Why I bring up this article is that our Mandarin Bilingual initiative fits in very nicely into the puzzle....we need to ensure our children have the tools necessary to function in the global economy, and therefore maintain our Canadian leadership in this global economy. Mandarin fluency will help them thrive in Asia while working for BC companies. We must work now to ensure that we become a true Pacific Gateway and not just a world-class transit lounge. Read on....
Op-Ed: Building the Asia Pacific Gateway Economy
By Yuen Pau WOO
September 11, 2007
The opening of Prince Rupert’s Fairview Container Terminal this week marks an important new step in strengthening British Columbia’s relationship with Asia. The new facility, which will handle up to 500,000 TEUs of container cargo annually, promises to cut the sailing time for vessels from East Asia to North America by almost three days compared to other west coast ports such as Los Angeles-Long Beach or Seattle-Tacoma.
The Rupert opening is probably the most anticipated of the various Asia Pacific “Gateway and Corridor” projects initiated by the Federal government. Other projects in BC include road and rail upgrades around the Deltaport terminal in Tsawwassen and in other key transportation corridors.
The expansion of port, road, and rail infrastructure is much needed, and will be an important boost to the transportation sector in BC and its supporting industries. The idea of an Asia Pacific Gateway, however, should involve much more than transportation. For Vancouver in particular, the challenge is not simply to build a physical gateway; it is to build a gateway economy.
A recent study by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada suggests that there are promising signs of an emerging gateway economy in Vancouver. In a survey of top-tier accounting and legal firms, the Foundation found that all but one of the firms surveyed have an “Asia Practice”, loosely defined as professionals who specialize in Asia-related business.
China and Hong Kong top the list of geographic priorities, followed by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. One very interesting finding is that the clients served by these firms are as likely to be from Asia as from BC. Similarly, the deals are not just in Canada, but also in Asian countries.
The types of Asia Pacific expertise provided by legal and accounting firms has gone well beyond the traditional immigration and real estate advisory services that accompanied the sharp influx of East Asian immigrants in the 80s and 90s. Respondents identified mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, and cross-border tax advice as some of the key activities in their Asia practices. The bulk of these deals likely have little to do with BC companies, which suggests the emergence of a services export industry that is based on the presence of Asia Pacific expertise and networks in Vancouver.
What is the source of this expertise and how does it relate to the gateway? The answer is that Vancouver’s longstanding ties to Asia, and the two-way flow of people, products, and ideas, has produced an environment which fosters knowledge and expertise that is relevant to Asia. Politicians and bureaucrats have only recently adopted the language of an “Asia Pacific gateway,” but the gateway has been at work in British Columbia for decades. The further development of the gateway will require investment not just in infrastructure, but also in human capital, innovation, and networks.
The BC government understands this broader conception of the Asia Pacific Gateway. Earlier this year, it set out a strategy to establish British Columbia as the “preferred economic and cultural gateway between North America and the Asia Pacific” and to ensure that British Columbians view Asia Pacific as “our economic future.”
But it is by no means inevitable that BC will achieve either of these aims. Part of the challenge is to be more ambitious about what it means to be a gateway. The Foundation’s study on legal and accounting “Asia practices” only scratches the surface of a much broader range of business and professional service activities in Vancouver that are quintessentially “gateway” activities. These include banking and financial services, real estate, architecture and engineering services, marketing and market research, education and training, and management consulting. The ways in which these activities connect with Asia are not well understood, but there are many stories about particular companies that have developed specialized Asia business niches because of the favourable mix of history, geography, and demography that is found in Vancouver.
Other gateway cities not only understand this broader conception of the gateway, but have also thrived on it. Hong Kong and Singapore, two of the busiest ports in the world, brand themselves above all as services economies. The massive investment in transportation infrastructure over the last two decades was never envisioned as an end in itself, but as one element in a broader strategy of economic development that included the development of services industries. There is a risk that if we project our own gateway ambitions merely as transportation infrastructure projects, we will be seen as a place through which business passes, rather than as a place where business is done.
The building of a physical gateway takes just a few years, but the establishment of a gateway economy will take decades. As we celebrate the opening of Prince Rupert’s container port, we must also turn our minds to the longer-term challenge of ensuring that we don’t end up as simply the best transit lounge this side of the Pacific.
Yuen Pau Woo is President and co-CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, a think tank on Canada’s relations with Asia, based in Vancouver.
MORE INFO ON THE GATEWAY PROJECT CAN BE FOUND ON:
www.asiapacific.ca/gateway/about
