The return of Russia with their "Vision 2020"

Russia President Dmitry Medvedev has been ambitious in the recent 12th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which is the premier international business event in the country.

In his speech, Medvedev addressed that Russia which is now in the 10th year of its economic boom, fuelled by soaring prices for its oil and gas exports, was in an ideal position to help solve the world financial crisis since it did not share the problems of other leading economies. Being resource rich in oil and gas (Russia has the world's largest natural gas reserves, the 2nd largest coal reserves and the 8th largest oil reserves) as well as food supplies (Russia is a leading global wheat producer), they are ready to position themselves to be global player in supporting the global community which currently having severe problem with these 2 commodities.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has taken up the heavy burden to settle the external debts left over by the former Union. It has gone through its hard time over the 90's, while the majority of the Asian countries were booming before the 1998 economic crisis. It was after 1998 that Russian economic reformation started to show result and brought recovery.

Over the past 10 years, Russia has benefited a lot from the rising oil prices, increased foreign investment, higher domestic consumption and greater political stability, which have bolstered its economic growth and enable it to prepay all the Soviet-era sovereign debts. Its foreign reserves also multifolded from $12 billion in 1999 to some $470 billion at the end of 2007 (the 3rd largest reserves in the world).

The Russian new energy wealth is funding billions of dollar in the infrastructure of St. Petersburg to eract an office tower taller than any in Europe today, a new international airport busier than any in Scandinavia today, and a cruise ship port with more berths than any cruise port of call in the world by 2020.

Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said they will become the world's 6th largest economy by the end of 2008, and aimed to be on the top 5 listing by 2020.

Their scientists also plan to launch a manned expedition to planet Mars by 2020. At the same time, they also planed to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015, and begin the industrial-scale mining of a rare fuel on the moon by 2020.

Russia is back on the international stage and wants to restore its sphere of influence. Will this be good or bad to the world? Will the Cold War re-emerge? What will be the role and influence of China, which is much stronger now than the previous Cold War time? Will the leadership role of the troubled America be challenged or replaced? Time will tell...

CommunicAsia Exhibition and Summit 2008 in Singapore

For years, CommunicAsia has been the largest international ICT and telecommunications tradeshow event held yearly in the Asia Pacific region. This year, it will be held in Singapore on the coming 17-20 Jun 2008 at Singapore Expo.

With the theme "Convergence, New Technologies & Opportunities", this event is expected to attract the participation of more than 60,000 ICT industry players from all over the world.

Among the leading edge technology to feature in this international event are:

• 3.5G / Long Term Evolution / 4G
• Fixed Mobile Convergence
• Next Generation Network
• Enterprise Applications / Solutions for Financial Services
• Enterprise Applications / Solutions for Government
• Enterprise Applications / Solutions for Hospitality / Retail
• Satellite
• Security
  

Admission for visitors is free, and although the online registration period is already over, you can register on the actual event days (17-20 Jun 2008, 10.30am to 6.00pm) with your business card at Singapore Expo.

Click here to download the brochure of CommunicAsia 2008.

Who Moved My Cheese? - days after petrol price hike

I remember 10 years ago, Dr. Spencer Johnson wrote an interesting best selling book about change management which has earned a great global attention and sold millions of copies.

This renown parable is "Who Moved My Cheese?", a story of 4 characters (2 mices and 2 humans) living in a Maze who face unexpected change when they discover their Cheese has disappeared.

In fact, this book has spawned many variations of related topics written by the same author as well as other authors.

In the parable, Sniff and Scurry are a pair of mices, and Hem and Haw are 2 little people. The 4 of them live in the Maze and look for cheese, and each of them have different mindset, especially between Hem and Haw. If you haven't read the story yet, I strongly encourage you to read the book and find out what happened to them.

For those who have finished reading the story, it is wise to remember those “Handwriting on the Wall” , which is the essence of the parable after all:


Change Happens
They Keep Moving The Cheese.

Anticipate Change
Get Ready For The Cheese To Move.

Monitor Change
Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old.

Adapt To Change Quickly
The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese.

Change
Move With The Cheese.

Enjoy Change!
Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!

Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again & Again
They Keep Moving The Cheese.

Therefore, we should never counted on the "cheese supply" to be constant. We all know that the worldwide petroleum supplies is limited but the usage is incrementing. We also aware that within the next couple of years, Malaysia will soon become a petroleum importer from the current exporter status. And now we have already feel the hike in petrol price and realise that the good old day of cheap petrol price might not come back again.

If you are still crying, protesting, annoying at the petrol price hike like Hem, you should also realise that doing so doesn't help much. Move on, try your very best to optimize your earning power, especially in the area to make your money work hard for you by growing itself through wise investment. Life has never been easy nowadays, remember the threat of formation of M-Shape Society has been accelerating, and it is only "when you move beyond your fear, you feel free".

Gambatte! to you and me. Gambatte! to all of us.