A land full of Eastern promise

Minister of State Brian Wilson has returned from the Far East where he tried to turn contracts abroad into jobs at home. This is the diary of his week

MONDAY: Bangkok, for the meeting of UNCTAD, a forum through which developing countries can promote their trading interests. I'm responsible for a Cabinet Office study of whether trade should be linked to issues which concern western consumers, such as labour standards and the environment. Such linkage is vehemently opposed by the developing countries themselves.

A string of meetings with ministers from Thailand, Egypt, Cambodia Lesotho, Nepal and Cuba all point in the same direction. Sanctions which keep their goods out of developed markets are simply another form of protectionism. They need help with capacity building, so that they have something to export in the first place, and access to markets for their agricultural products.

In terms of illuminating our project, it is an invaluable exercise. When my discussion with the Cambodian minister about trade is over, he raises another matter. "In Cambodia," he says, "we can have peace or we can have justice. We cannot have both." It is a poignant summary of the dilemma posed by the UN's commitment to war crimes tribunals. He warns fear of retribution would drive the Khmer Rouge back into the jungle. The killing would start all over again.

From a safe distance, it is easy and cost-free to be against child labour and in favour of bringing mass murderers to justice. The closer you get to the action, the more complicated things tend to get. A cheery dinner with the St Andrews Society of Bangkok presided over by Sir James Hodge, an affable Ambassador and Celtic supporter. Much mutual commiseration.

TUESDAY: Press launch for the British Council's Footballing Nation exhibition. Graven Images of Glasgow have done the design. Fifty thousand Thais will visit it during a nine-day run which indicates the interest in British - or actually, English - football. The simple message is commercial potential can only be unlocked internationally by those clubs which are familiar through TV. Ours are not, which is a pity. And so to Hanoi.

WEDNESDAY: Plenty of change even since I was here 18 months ago. The open-fronted shops are acquiring windows and plastic signs. We're staying at the new Hilton hotel beside the opera house. Come back in a few years and the whole area will be cafes and designer shops. For the time being, it is still a marvellous mixture of French colonial, old and new.

My main business is to encourage negotiations between Petro Vietnam and BP Amoco for development of the Nam Con Son gas field. It's vital to Vietnam's economic growth prospects. As the finishing line approaches, negotiations get tougher - the Vietnamese did not win the Paris Peace Conference by being soft touches.

Dinner with Minister Ton, whom I met when Petro Vietnam came to Aberdeen a few months ago. He acquired a taste for good whisky and the Ambassador produces a bottle of Balvenie. It's joined by Vietnamese vodka - which they certainly should be exporting.

THURSDAY: I learn about a project, under the auspices of the Prince's Business Trust, aimed at raising labour standards using the carrot rather than the stick. The big sports firms such as Reebok and Adidas have agreed to support suppliers who implement acceptable working conditions. Resistance does not come from the multinationals who generally play a positive role in raising standards. Persuading local enterprise is more difficult.

There's a great little ceremony to mark the opening of new offices by a property company, Chesterton Petty, who have taken over a beautiful old French building which previously served as a hotel. I'm met at the door by dancing dragons and a man who used to work for the Daily Record and is now employed by the Vietnam News. This, I later suspect, explains how my encounter with the dragons ended up in Tom Shields' Diary! Two likeable Scottish guys are in charge, Alistair Orr-Ewing from Portpatrick and Charles McGrigor from Dalmally - brother of the Tory list MSP. I snip the ribbon and depart all too soon for Ho Chi Minh City.

I get a briefing from BP Amoco about their perspective on where things stand on Nam Con Son. The stakes are high. It's a #1 billion project and a lot of that work would undoubtedly come to the UK. Credit to Scottish Enterprise which runs a scheme to introduce Scottish companies in the oil and gas sector to the Vietnamese market - a recognition of its importance.

A meeting with the Chairman of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City about infrastructure projects. Then to Manila.

FRIDAY: 7am start but only, I confess, to get in nine holes at Manila Golf Club. It's probably the only place I could have met the Governor of the Central Bank before breakfast. I know the Ambassador Alan Collins well through the job he did - particularly for investment into Scotland - in his previous post, Taipei. Again, oil and gas dominate. When we talk about exports being the key to future employment levels in the Scottish industry, this is the kind of place we mean. There are huge contracts to be won and if British companies succeed, spin-offs at home are remarkable. I visit a case in point - Shell's $1 billion investment in the Malambaya gas field.

SATURDAY: A ferry to Bataan and BP's brand new polyethylene plant, again with a Scot in charge - Sandy Duncan, from Aberdeen. There are also close links with Grangemouth. I like the Philippines. It's at a stage where huge infrastructure investments are essential and that means a whole range of opportunities for UK companies. Crucially, all of this translates into jobs at home.

SUNDAY: Brief stop-over in Singapore specifically to visit a company run by a Lewisman, Calum Buchanan is managing director of Core Technical Services (Far East). They inspect, maintain and repair anything that is in the water and send men all over the region to do the same thing. Gordon MacGregor, who founded the parent company, is visiting Singapore and we head for an oil rig which they are working on. A fantastic story of a small company which has had the vision to expand.

Brian Wilson is Minister of State at the Scotland Office

Copyright 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.