Posted September 09, 2007 00:21

First Order of Business

Seeing you in September
I'm obliged to start off this month's newsletter with a shameless plug in the hope that you'll join me for breakfast at the Governor's Club on Friday, September 7. I'll be discussing immigration reform as part of the Leadership Business Council's Speaker Series. Check the calendar for details. I hope to see you there.

This month's newsletter is loaded with great guest commentary, and promises to be one of the finest editions yet.

What to make of "MADE IN CHINA?"
Frequent contributor Tom Watkins is back with another excellent "China Syndrome" column (below) addressing the quality control issues that are making Americans think twice about their Elmo dolls and other goods coming from China.

Meanwhile, Customs and International Trade Attorney Peter Quinter of the firm Becker & Poliakoff offers a rather different perspective on the Chinese quality issue, reminding us that, as "citizens of the world," we all have much to consider as we move into an inevitably globalized future.

Finally, have your appetite for China whetted by Joy Dupont's delightful article on her experience participating in a Cooking School tour of China.


FEATURE ARTICLE: Enterprise Florida Rocks!
Florida is going places, and Enterprise Florida knows where. In this month's feature article, I give EFI it's due for charting a course to international expansion and economic growth for the Sunshine State.

Biotech Is On The Way! Really!
For South Floridians, especially those in Palm Beach County, the growth of our nascent Biotech industry can't happen fast enough. Dietmar R. Goetz, President of the World Trade Center Confederation of Germany, offers compelling explanation of how biotech clusters form a transnational network "ecosystem" that will foster the growth of the industry. Mr. Goetz will be heading an exploratory trip to South Florida this month to open channels of communication that will welcome our region into this expanding international network.

PASS IT ALONG------------
Johnny the Bagger
Click here for a moving and inspirational story of service and what it means.

WTC Palm Beach Member Profile

Yvonne S. Boice

Call her "superwoman" or call her "amazing," it's hard not to be a little humbled by Yvonne. I call her "friend," and offer this detailed profile of her and her accomplishments to those of you who may not know her and all that she has done for women and other citizens of the world.

Click here to read about Yvonne.

Feature Article

e-Florida.com... A Plan for Florida's Future

If you are not aware of the organization known as Enterprise Florida and you are in business in the state of Florida, you are missing out on a great resource to help chart your business course and set your objectives to align with the state's own plan for future economic development.

Having said that, I could conceivably stop writing here and simply point you the EFI website where you can find out for yourself. However, to do that would be an injustice to the reach and efficiencies found within this essential statewide business development tool.

READ MORE...

Tom Watkins' CHINA SYNDROME

China, Wake Up -- Quality Matters
by Tom Watkins

Okay, some will forgive you for sending us tainted toothpaste, pet and sea food and lousy tires -- but mess with our children's toys and you are looking for trouble!

The number one toy maker in the world, Fisher Price recently announced it is recalling nearly 100 types of toys -- including Big Bird, Dora and Diego characters and my personal favorite, Elmo, because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead. Lead paint can cause irreversible brain damage and death.

It seems that a day does not pass without hearing or reading about the latest poor quality product being exported from China to our country and around the world. The Fisher Price story is their latest in a rash of quality recalls that has raised global concern about the safety of Chinese-made products.

China You Have a Problem
Do not let your propaganda agents convince you this is some western plot to hold you back -- it is a real problem that you must address. If China does not address these issues soon, and with greater openness and transparency than their government is used to, this problem will be like a stick in the spokes of their (Chinese made, of course) economic juggernaut bike.

The key to turning this mess around is to incorporate a quality culture into the fabric of Chinese society -- no easy task. Since Deng Xiaoping, said "to get rich is glorious" there has been a sense of urgency in China. Its history is littered with windows of opportunity that open and close quickly. For manufacturers and local municipal governments that have invested, literally, in their success it often means taking shortcuts on quality. No one in China is sure how long anything will last -- a situation that keeps many focused on getting rich -- quickly -- at any cost.

Be equally clear, the American companies and our government are not free from culpability for this problem either. Where are the quality control and oversight procedures that should have caught many of these problems BEFORE these tainted and dangerous products left the Chinese factory floor and end up in our living room floors? Where are the US food, drug and safety inspectors to assure that the American consumer is not put at risk by these and other imported products?

We need to ask, are the latest Chinese quality and safety scares the tip of the iceberg of other massive Chinese quality problems that lurk beneath the surface?

As someone who paid his way through college bending and welding steel at what was once the world's largest industrial complex, the Ford Rouge Plant (quality issues are at least partially to blame for this no longer being the largest industrial complex), I learned that "quality" cannot be inspected or recalled into a product -- it must be built in along the way.

We need to hold these American companies, as well as our government, accountable for these products reaching our shores and entering our homes. Congress needs to tighten the rules and the President needs to assure the federal government performs better than it did with the FEMA disaster in the Katrina fiasco.

China Fix The Problems
We must not allow these series of severe China scares to be used to stoke the flames of xenophobia that seem to lurk beneath the surface. It would be a mistake to use these problems as rationale to impose inappropriate trade restrictions that will hurt both the Chinese and American workers and the American consumer.

China must realize just how serious these quality problems are to the American public. China also better conclude that these safety and quality problems may be small from the perspective of the overall volume of goods shipped to America and abroad but the fear is huge! To argue statistics is to drive the nail in the China coffin. China, take heed -- a perception problem is a "real" problem that, if not nipped in the bud, will taint all Chinese products as inferior, unsafe and defective for years if not decades to come.

As my dear departed Grandma Everett was fond of telling all her grandchildren, "You only get one chance to make a first impression."

The Chinese, the American corporations manufacturing and importing products from China and our government need to clean up their acts for their own sake as well as for the rest of the world. The American consumer is forgiving if there is admission that there is a problem -- and it is corrected. Attempting to spin and cast blame is not a solution. If you play games with quality you ultimately will pay the price in a free market place-- just ask the domestic auto companies.

The Chinese and American economies are like multiple scrambled eggs; they can't be separated. There will be grave consequences for the world economy if consumers stop trusting Chinese-made goods. The greatest fear Chinese Communist Government officials have is massive social unrest, which will surely come about if their economic engine stalls. Come to think of it, American corporate and government leaders should share the same fear. Collectively, the Chinese entrepreneur, their government (often, one and the same) as well as American multinational companies and our government need to get on top of these quality and safety problems for the sake of the people on both sides of the ocean.

Given the inextricable link between the US and Chinese economies -- an unstable China impacts us all.

Quality matters in manufacturing, business, and communist and democratic governments.

Everyone, get your act together. Elmo and the American consumer deserve better.

Tom Watkins is the President and CEO of TDW and Associates a business and educational consulting firm working in China and the US. He served as Superintendent of Schools for the state of Michigan, 2001-2005 and President and CEO of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County, 1996-2001. He has a life long interest in China and has traveled there several times since his first trip in 1989. He can be reached at: tdwatkins@aol.com

Mr. Watkins has also provided a link to an interview he gave recently on Chinese television. Click here to view video (RealMedia format)


COUNTERPOINT
Customs and International Trade Attorney Peter Quinter of the firm Becker & Poliakoff provides a different perspective on the Chinese quality issue. Click here to view Mr. Quinter's article in PDF

-Al Zucaro

Reprinted with permission.
September 2007 International Newsletter Courtesy of Al Zucaro ©2007 Al Zucaro.