The government has the full responsibility for the prosperity of its citizen. The prosperity attributes to people's incomes and government's revenue. Those incomes and revenues come from selling things! The more you can sell, let alone the added value ones, the more prosperous you will be.
Of late we can see how the selling-attitude government happening in the international level.
The California state of America plans to develop high-speed railway system connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. A huge-amount tender will invite world class manufacturers of the world including well-known Japanese high-speed railway system, Shinkansen.
In order to win the competition, the Japanese government invited Californian Governor, the famous action actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. To serve the Client, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan himself made a sales pitch for the Japanese railway system.
What's interesting is Governor Arnold was not only let the Japanese entice him to buy trains. He himself made his own sales pitch for tourism, Californian agriculture products and wine. "I am a forever salesman" he said holding a basket of Californian nuts in front of reporters.
In a similar vein, many years ago Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad pitched for Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). He wanted the multinational high-tech companies all over the world to establish offices there. This visionary project is very prestigious due to at that time there was no such zones of information technology in developing country. Mahathir traveled around the world to attain commitment to investing in MSC.
In Indonesia we have Pak Harto and Habibie who sold aircrafts. I remember the background thinking of Habibie to develop N250 allowing capacity of 50 passengers. At that time he saw the high demand of the wide-body aircraft of 200 – 600 passengers. He predicted the smaller aircraft's demand would rise too. However until now it never happened as the light of Indonesia's Aircraft Company (IPTN) faded away. Despite the bleak sales, however we can appreciate them for the efforts.
Later we have Fadel Muhammad, then-Governor of Gorontalo who sold corn to South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. The entrepreneur background helps him to govern like a businessman. He deemed himself as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), while the Province Secretary as Chief Operating Officer (COO).
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We really got angry seeing our lawmakers' trips abroad for comparative study. The result will be nothing, but wasting money and time.
For a better tomorrow, Indonesia should encourage our top officials to go abroad selling something. But first we should develop our industry. The products have to be made first. Shinkansen provides us a good example of product marketing process. Shinkansen is tested in Japan and until now books a record of no accidents during operation. The tested products speak for themselves.
Besides, Indonesia is blessed a big market. Strategic industries as Habibie's inheritance have already been operating for decades. So the focus should be a creation of good products, test them for domestic usage and then sell it worldwide. Certainly our product, for instance trains, cannot compete with Shinkansen to provide railway system in California, but we can sell to other developing country with cheap prices and not-too-high-technology purpose.
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