Gov. Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State has said that the challenge of National Economic Development has gone beyond the limits of public policy.
Speaking at the Verdant Zeal first Innovation Lecture Series in Lagos, Amaechi noted that the new economic order has transformed economic development into a market challenge as well.
“Nations compete with other nations and strive to devise sources of competitive advantage. Thus today there are more reasons why nations must manage and control their branding,’’ he said.
According to him, the need to attract tourists, factories, companies, and talented people and to find markets for their exports requires that countries adopt strategic marketing management tools and conscious branding.
Amaechi explained that a country’s brand image has direct bearing on its economy and that country-related intangible assets in many ways influence the market-shares of brands and their marketing effectiveness, which is why no sub-national or even company can be rated above its sovereign.
Noting the experiences of Japan, China, India in global ratings, Amaechi said that Japan’s engagement in the small car segment of the market gradually gave it a lever and space above the bigger American and European car giants.
In the case of country image affecting brand, he said that China and Chinese products hardly could get a foot in the door of the more industralised west and that China built on its population and market size and began a deliberate industralisation programme.
He noted that at first no one would buy Chinese goods as they were considered, third rate, cheap and certainly not cheerful and ‘’today, China’s trade balances and reserves are far in excess of those of many of the western countries, and the United states in deep debt to China’’.
According to him, China is gradually inching into other countries and is competing literally neck to neck with the United States for oil, trade partners and development aid. Its economic prowess being its lever.
On the experience of Ghana, Amaechi said: ‘’It is amazing how Ghana continues to define West Africa for the world when it comes to nation branding.
Amaechi believes that Nigeria has much that it can sell and should sell and that examples of nation branding appear to begin with a productive economy.
‘’A brand must sell something. Our topic speaks of pragmatism. The image of a nation to the rest of the world is crucial.
“Today, the world is one market. The rapid advance of globalisation means that every country, every city and every region must compete with each other for its share of the world’s consumers, tourists, investors, students, entrepreneurs, international sporting and cultural events, and for the attention and respect of the international media, of other governments, and the people of other countries,’’ he said.
According to him, business decisions sadly are often made based on such flimsy matters as well worn clichés and only a marked difference in a country’s economic fortunes would jolt investors and tourists out of complacency. ‘’Everyone sees the world from the eyes of preconceived stereotypes even if we are not fully aware of this and do not always admit it to ourselves.
“Paris is about style, Japan about technology, Switzerland about wealth and precision, Rio de Janeiro about carnival and football, Tuscany about the good life, and most African nations about poverty, corruption, war, famine and disease,” he said.
He believes that all responsible governments should on behalf of their people, their institutions and their companies, need to discover what the world’s perception of their country is, and to develop a strategy for managing it.
“It is a key part of their job to try to build a reputation that is fair, true, powerful, attractive, genuinely useful to their economic, political and social aims, and honestly reflects the spirit, the genius and the will of the people. This huge task has become one of the primary skills of governments in the twenty-first century,’’ he said.
On the experience of Rivers State, Amaechi said that Rivers State was a near pariah state, known for militancy, criminality and a deprived environment and that the state government embarked on changing the perception in order to attract investors.
‘’We were committed to a few key things, chief of which was poverty reduction and reflating the Rivers economy.
“To do this, we needed to change the mindset of our people but we also needed to empower them by arming them with the right education, good health and infrastructure to enable the economy become a productive one. Side by side our development and renewal programmes was also our rebranding project.
“As we tackled security and renewed the faith of our people in their government, it was critical also to give them the hope of a future encouraged by new investment and new opportunities. Getting the word out that our state was alive again, brimming with enormous opportunities and possibilities, it was important we told our story in a manner to show that we were indeed ready and open for business.’’ He said.
“In conclusion, Amaechi said that the Nigerian project is one that all of us, even the most pessimistic amongst us holds dear to their hearts. It may also be true that we haven’t exactly given a good report of ourselves in some times and some ways in the past, but it is also true.”
Noting that the Nigerian nation “is a work in progress and together we can work to ensure that we change the dynamics in deed and then in words’’, Amaechi called on the elite to begin to think in terms of encouraging a productive economy and denying themselves a bit of the comfort they derive from our very pervasive rent culture.
