Nói thêm một tí ngoài lề. Tony Buổi sáng là một trong những thứ ít ỏi có ích ở cái chốn vô bổ và đầy rác rưởi như Facebook. Tôi không rõ người viết là ai, không biết trong mỗi lời có bao nhiêu sự thực và bao nhiêu chém gió. Nhưng đó ắt hẳn là một người nói được - làm được. Hoặc ít nhất những lời đó viết ra bởi một người nhiều trải nghiệm.
Trong những bài viết của Tony, tôi nhớ tới một người quen khác của tôi, cũng đi lên từ việc sản xuất kinh doanh. Người này sau đó đánh chứng khoán, bất động sản đều bộn xu. Nhưng tôi nể, vì cái sự bộn-xu ông có được, là nhờ bản lĩnh thương trường mà ổng đã trui rèn qua bao nhiêu năm. Sách vở tóm lại các điều đó, cho tôi học. Nhưng ông đó, tự tóm lấy những thứ trong-sách, bằng kinh nghiệm thực tế của mình.
Nên ông thấm thía sâu sắc hơn, dạn dày hơn và vì thế bản lĩnh hơn.
Tôi vẫn thích nói chuyện với ông. Vì những điều ông nói, nếu diễn đạt lại bằng ngôn ngữ học thuật, thì chẳng khác gì các học thuyết kinh tế mà tôi vẫn học.
Đấy là ý nghĩa của việc ăn thật - làm thật. Chứ ko fải thói ăn thật - làm giả :).
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Tôi lại tìm đọc lại về bẫy thu nhập trung bình và cách vượt qua bẫy thu nhập trung bình. Thực là buồn cười khi phải dùng đến ngôn ngữ kinh tế học để gọi tên tình trạng này. Nó, thực ra, có thể thấy được, trong mọi thứ đang xảy ra hàng ngày.
- Từ thành phố chỉ toàn hàng quần áo (Tàu), hàng ăn, hàng cà phê, tủ thuốc lá. Người ta chỉ mua đi bán lại các thứ, chẳng làm ra cái gì.
- Từ những thư viện lưa thưa và những quán trà chanh vỉa hè đông đúc người trẻ.
- Từ đống sách kinh điển nằm góc khuất và ngôn tình Trung Quốc tràn lan.
- Từ những thứ văn-hóa-truyền-thống-Việt-Nam ngắc ngứ chết trong khi văn hóa Nhật, Hàn và gỉ gì gi dậy sóng.
- Từ những reality show và phim truyền hình dài tập nô nức người xem...
Để thoát bẫy thu nhập trung bình, quốc gia cần phát triển sản xuất theo chiều sâu chứ không phải theo diện rộng. Phải làm sao tạo ra nhiều GIÁ TRỊ hơn, dựa trên lao động chất lượng cao (skillful) và năng suất cao. Chứ không phải cứ vứt NHÂN CÔNG và VỐN vào nhà máy, và thế là thành tăng trưởng.
Xin đọc lại đoạn chữ in đậm. Nếu bạn vẫn chơi game, lướt Facebook, đi muộn về sớm làm ăn quấy quả, chân trong chân ngoài...
Và nếu bạn cũng như tôi. Mắc kẹt trong ước mơ gì-đó của mình.
Từng công dân mắc kẹt, của một đất nước mắc kẹt.
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Bên dưới câu chuyện của quốc gia, là câu chuyện của mỗi công dân. Của từng cá nhân trong cộng đồng ấy.
Tôi không mơ cứu vớt được đất nước. Chỉ mong làm tốt được việc của mình. Cũng không mong nhiều tiền. Chỉ mong mình không bị vật vã bởi cảm giác tiểu thị dân hèn hèn buồn bã. Mong mỗi ngày mình sống, không phải để sống cho qua ngày.
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Escaping the middle-income trap
I returned a few days ago from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, where the talk of the town – well, at least among economists — is the “middle-income trap.” What’s that, you ask? A developing nation gets “trapped” when it reaches a certain, relatively comfortable level of income but can’t seem to take that next big jump into the true big leagues of the world economy, with per capita wealth to match. Every go-go economy in Asia has confronted this “trap,” or is dealing with it now. Breaking out of it, however, is extremely difficult. The reason is that escaping the “trap” requires an entire overhaul of the economic growth model most often used by emerging economies.
Malaysia’s caught in the “trap” right now, and getting out if is going to be tough. Simply put, Malaysia needs to change what it has been doing economically for the past 40 years. How Malaysia got itself into the “trap,” and how it could escape from it, can provide us with some valuable lessons on development and, more specifically, how developing nations can graduate into becoming fully advanced economies.
The concept behind the “middle-income trap” is quite simple: It’s easier to rise from a low-income to a middle-income economy than it is to jump from a middle-income to a high-income economy. That’s because when you’re really poor, you can use your poverty to your advantage. Cheap wages makes a low-income economy competitive in labor-intensive manufacturing (apparel, shoes and toys, for example). Factories sprout up, creating jobs and increasing incomes. Every rapid-growth economy in Asia jumpstarted its famed gains in human welfare in this way, including Malaysia.
However, that growth model eventually runs out of steam. As incomes increase, so do costs, undermining the competitiveness of the old, low-tech manufacturing industries. Countries (like Malaysia) then move “up the value chain,” into exports of more technologically advanced products, like electronics. But even that’s not enough to avoid the “trap.” To get to that next level – that high-income level – an economy needs to do more than just make stuff by throwing people and money into factories. The economy has to innovate and use labor and capital more productively. That requires an entirely different way of doing business. Instead of just assembling products designed by others, with imported technology, companies must invest more heavily in R&D on their own and employ highly educated and skilled workers to turn those investments into new products and profits. It is a very, very hard shift to achieve. Thus the “trap.”
South Korea is probably the best current example of a developing economy making the leap into the realm of the most advanced. Companies like Samsung and LG are becoming true leaders in their fields. Taiwan isn’t far behind. China’s policymakers are fully aware that, with labor costs rising, it needs to follow suit. (More on Time.com: See a stimulus report card at the one year mark)
Malaysia, though, is quite far from where it wants to be. That’s a bit surprising based on its remarkable recent history. Malaysia has been among the best performing economies in the world since World War II, one of only 13 to record an average growth rate of 7% over at least a 25-year period. The country has an amazing record of improving human welfare. In 1970, some 50% of Malaysians lived in absolute poverty; now less than 4% do. Yet Malaysians also feel that they’ve become somewhat stuck where they are. GDP growth has slowed up, from an annual average of 9.1% between 1990 and 1997 to 5.5% from 2000 and 2008. Meanwhile, other Asian economies have zipped by Malaysia. According to the World Bank, the per capita gross national income (GNI) of South Korea in 1970 was below that of Malaysia ($260 versus $380), but by 2009, South Korea’s was three times larger than Malaysia’s ($21,530 versus $6,760). Malaysia is getting “trapped” as a relatively prosperous but still middle-income nation.
Can Malaysia escape? The initial indications are not encouraging. The economy’s growth engine remains unchanged – export-oriented manufacturing backed by foreign investment. Its companies are just not innovating or adding much value to what they produce. You can find all of the ugly details in a very thorough study by the World Bank, released in April. Private investment has sunk precipitously, from more than a third of GDP in the mid-1990s to only some 10% today. Labor productivity is growing more slowly than in the 1990s. The “value-added” in manufacturing in Malaysia trails many of its neighbors – an indication that Malaysian factories are mainly assembling goods designed elsewhere. R&D spending remains frighteningly low, at about 0.6% of GDP (compared to 3.5% in South Korea). If Malaysia is going to break the “trap,” it has to reverse all of these trends.
How can Malaysia achieve that? The World Bank report has pages of recommendations. The basics include slicing apart the bureaucratic red tape that stifles competition and suppresses investment, bolstering the education system so it can churn out more top-notch graduates, and funneling more financial resources to start-ups and other potentially innovative firms. To its credit, the government of Malaysia is fully aware of what it needs to do. In March, Prime Minister Najib Razak introduced a reform program called the New Economic Model. You can read the initial report here. The NEM shows that Najib realizes that excessive government interference in the economy is dampening investor sentiment and holding back Malaysian industry. All eyes now are waiting for the more detailed policy recommendations for the NEM (though it is not clear when those might appear).
Yet I’m wondering if getting policy right is really enough. Of course, it would help, by setting in place better incentives for private businessmen to invest in innovative projects, and creating the tools they need to make those projects work. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. I’ve been musing on the differences between South Korea and Malaysia. Why has Korea jumped so far ahead? I think the reason is embedded in the different methods the two countries used to spur rapid growth.
Both countries relied exports to create rapid gains in income, but they did so differently. South Korea, from its earliest days of export-led development in the mid-1960s, had been determined to create homegrown, internationally competitive industries. Though Korean firms supplied big multinationals with components or even entire products, that was never enough – Korea wanted to manufacture its own products under its own brands. The effort was often a painful one – remember Hyundai’s first disastrous foray into the U.S. car market in the late 1980s and early 1990s – but Korea is where it is today because its private companies have been working on getting there for a very long time, backed in full by the financial sector and the government.
Malaysia, on the other hand, relied much, much more on foreign investment to drive industrialization. That’s not a bad thing – multinational companies provide an instant shot of capital, jobs, expertise and technology into a poor country. MNCs, however, aren’t going to develop Malaysian products; that has to take place in the labs and offices of Malaysia’s private businesses. But those businessmen have been content to squeeze profits from serving MNCs and maintaining their original, assembly-based business models.
In other words, what is needed for Malaysia to break from the “middle-income trap” is a greater national commitment to innovate on its own. Entrepreneurs and bankers have to be willing to take more risks to support inventive ventures and new technologies. Talented workers have to be willing to take jobs at home instead of Silicon Valley. The Malaysian private sector has to be more devoted to the country’s future. This is fuzzy stuff, outside of the realm of usual economics. But I fear the kind of commitment needed to escape the “trap” unfortunately can’t be created by government initiatives alone.
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Vừa hqa khen cái page kia đc tí thì hnay thấy viết xuống tay rồi.
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