Starting a Year

Two days after landing in Bhutan, I find myself on my way to Dagana – one of the more remoter districts of Bhutan. As the Toyota Coaster bus that I am travelling in winds its way up and down the serpentine roads on the undulating native territory, a thousand thoughts tumble into my mind: It is 2023, I am finally done with college, and I am back to Bhutan for good. Most importantly, I am back with a singular goal in my mind – that of growing Khemdro Dairy into a respectable business serving the real needs of everyone involved – the farmers, the markets, the employees, and finally, myself. 

I try to read LKY’s The Singapore Story as the bus rumbles and tumbles over the narrow asphalt road. While LKY rattles off lists after lists of things he did right for Singapore, I smile wryly as I pass by the work sites of Puna I and Puna II hydropower projects. Forlorn pieces of work lie a-strewn with a few workers straggling around in the dusty terrain. Where is the progress, I wonder. To be sure, it happened to be a Saturday. But then I realize that I am gazing at the poster children for Bhutan’s developmental challenges: hemmed in by a challenging geography between two geo-strategic rivals, limited by our small population, immobilized with the lack of a strong financial market, development is a challenging ask. Understandably, Bhutan’s ablest and brightest are leaving in droves for Australia for its higher wages.

Leafing through The Singapore Story, it seems to me that the set of challenges and opportunities that Singapore faced from the 60 to the 90s, and that Bhutan faces today are different in significant ways. Small Singapore, never a homogenous autarky, was always an entrepot from its British days. As an immigrant-driven economy, it drew the economically tenacious and risk-loving lot. It sat in an important maritime corridor close to nations of immense populations with great trade potentials. It able leaders, from the start, inculcated a philosophy of highly open goods and capital flows with the regional as well as global economies. It sought a highly market-driven economy with a permissive regulatory environment where local and multinational companies could easily set up business. As a early mover in the region, it could position itself as a major finance and services hub.

But it was able to capitalize on these macro factors by (1) having a great leader in the form of LKY, (2) investing in its people as its greatest asset, thus turning Singapore into a competitive knowledge economy, (3) incorporating a hard-working and science-driven approach to everything. 

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As I ruminated on these thoughts, I asked myself, “Singapore did it. Can, will, and should we?”

While very different in the macro fundamentals, Bhutan today also has an astute leader in the form of our beloved K5 who has demonstrated great compassion, wisdom, and vision in His plans and projects. And I know many a smart Bhutanese friends, both insides and outside of Bhutan, who are more than up to their tasks. So, on the innate human capital side, can we? I think so. To be sure, I do that has rarely been the issue. 

A day after landing, I had met up with a talented friend who leads a respectable services company in Thimphu that employs almost a dozen young people. He told me that for Bhutan, the knowledge economy remains the best bet for creating the jobs our growing labor force needs. Although I am in the primary/manufacturing sectors, I couldn’t agree more. Realizing that for Bhutan, its most viable and sustainable resource is its people, I think knowing the People can is such an important first step. 

As we head into a new year, there are many significant developments underway. Using foreign expertise, the nation is trying to restructure the civil service (and government controlled public companies) to be more like Singapore’s. White absolutely necessary, it runs the risk of alienating our civil employees who are already resigning in droves to head to Australia. Concurrently, to arrest runaway national debt and fiscal deficit, the government is asking the important questions of where it can cut costs and raise revenues from. While critical, this runs the risk of upsetting workers, landowners, and businessfolks if done willy-nilly. The results of these well-intentioned and timely new policies, together with that what we do with our education system, industrial policies, tax and regulatory regimes, and financial market reforms will determine whether we can and will make it.

Of courses, everything is easier said than done. And getting right the set of priorities, policies, and actions to go the Singapore way will be even harder. Nonetheless, our nation sits at a pivotal moment in history, and we cannot afford to be nonchalant about anything.  

At any rate, as I head into 2023 with my humble yet singular goal, I feel optimistic. We have a benevolent and wise leader at the helm with great plans for Bhutan in the 21st century.

At the risk of appearing Panglossian, I like to think that the uncertainties will always be there, especially in a period like today when national and international status quos are literally being upended by developments seeming out of our control. At the end of the day, everything is part of the grand procession of time and progress – albeit not necessarily for the best (Sorry, Doctor Pangloss). 

I on my part, will, like the title character in Antoine de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince, stick to cleaning my volcanos (even the dormant one) and water my flowers (even if they sulk).