Theme 2 - Facilitation: Diplomacy and entrepreneurship

The Asia-Pacific region is home to a range of polities with differing approaches to state involvement in economic development. There is the China case in which the state is the biggest shareholder in the country’s biggest companies and steers many others. Singapore has used the government-owned Temasek Holdings over many years as an arm’s length vehicle to guide the island state’s economic development. In WA, the state endeavours to nurture and promote economic activity with a far less direct set of tools.

A key challenge for governments and corporations is how business can be successfully facilitated and brokered amidst this regional variety of government-business operating models. For WA there are also the complications of a provincial state government operating at an international level, yet subject to Federal powers over foreign affairs and trade. Nonetheless WA as a significant economic player has the opportunity to contribute to the development and refinement of new modes of economic diplomacy and political entrepreneurship to facilitate the growth of economic integration in the region.

Questions

• What difficulties can arise for private corporations and for state-owned enterprises when they enter markedly different business operating environments?

• How and to what degree can individual political leaders and government agencies facilitate and advance economic brokerage, and what are the risks?

• Are there upper limits to what state governments can achieve in regional economic diplomacy, and to what degree is this restricted by central government sovereign authority?

• In what ways can WA contribute to efforts to build effective modes of brokerage in the region and so assist the development of new levels of regional engagement?