Thursday, January 22, 2015

Will Lin






Will's Next Project - in Burnaby









































Asian institutional investors Ayala Land and Edward G. Wong Group have private equity positions with this dynamic developer in Vancouver B.C., Canada.   We are proud of Will!   He's a forefronter - like us.





















Will Lin





















Will Lin accelerates on the job and on the race track

Growing Metro: Rize Alliance has big plans in several areas of the region



ON THE GAS: Auto racers know that going a little slower into corners lets you come out faster overall and with greater control. That’s second nature for Rize Alliance Properties CEO Will Lin, 49, who pilots a Porsche 911 GT3 in U.S. events and a Mazda Miata at Mission Raceway Park. Such track technique paid off in the case of The Independent, the near-$200-million, 258-unit Rize development Acton Ostry Architects designed for Broadway and Kingsway. It was 2005 when Lin paid $18 million for a site likely worth $45 million today. But recession and neighbourhood opposition to the project’s height delayed city hall approval until September, 2014. When it came, Lin hit the accelerator.

He has yet to win a Porsche GT3 Cup event. In business firsts, though, The Independent is Lin’s debut undertaking with Ayala Land, a Manila-based global property developer with a real-estate market cap of US$11 billion. As for that 51-to-49 per-cent relationship continuing, Lin said: “It depends on how this one does on presale.” That in turn depends on another first for Rize: alliance with marketer Bob Rennie.

Meanwhile, Lin, whose original 1992 Yaletown project was worth $1.9 million, now has $700 million worth on the go. In February, Rize will begin building a $70-million, 140,0 -square-foot building on Terminal Avenue. Canadian Revenue Agency staff will occupy all eight floors. “It fits like a glove for them,” Lin said without specifying boxing or knuckle-duster versions. The building will neighbour one inquiriesloped in 2013 for offices, then adapted to house privately owned Columbia College.

In Central Surrey, Rize has reportedly pre-sold 80 per cent of the $75-million, 28-floor Wave tower for completion in March. The swoopy balconies IBI Group architects designed reflect nearby city hall’s The Future Lives Here mantra. For Rize, though, the future faded on a 79-home Sunshine Coast development because there “you can buy homes for less than replacement costs, so there’s no point in building anything new,” Lin said.

Still, there may be a point in expanding to California. “Coming late to the scene, we’re not going to get the best deals,” he said. “But, given the population, there’s the potential to sustain future growth.”
That’s also likely so around Metrotown, where Lin paid $45 million for a McKay Avenue site last year. He’s applied to build 500 units in 41- and 28-floor towers named Goldhouse. “In turbulent times like these, people like gold,” Lin said. Claiming that 95 percent of Metrotown-area buyers are from mainland China, he said the proposed $250-million project: “There’s nothing wrong with showing off a bit — in a tasteful way.”

Not that he’d do that on the racetrack, however tastefully.  -- by Malcolm Parry, 2015 January 22, VANCOUVER SUN

The Canon of Chinese Canadian Influencers in Vancouver 2014:

First to Develop in Yaletown and Contributor to Making Vancouver A World-Class City












祥瑞筑巢 蔚为荣华:林蔚荣的温哥华梦想

乐活按语:林蔚荣,开发温哥华耶鲁镇时,那里还是最脏乱差的地方,现在已经成为大温的时尚中心。


--2014加拿大温哥华华人影响力人物大典》评语

作为最早开发温哥华耶鲁镇的一批人,林蔚荣亲自参与了这个城市近20年的剧变进程,并且为这座城市的美丽贡献了心力。

2015年2月初,长达7年时间规划设计开发的温哥华快乐山The Independent项目将面向公众发售。该大厦座落于Main Street和Broadway交界处最繁华的路段,提供258个单位。

7年开发一个项目,对于中国的建商来说,是非常难以理解的事,但在温哥华,这司空平常。“在这里搞地产,你得非常有耐性。”温哥华发展商瑞升建设(Rize Alliance)行政总裁林蔚荣对此有着切身的感受。“市府在快乐山的社区规划中,需要一座最具代表性的建筑。The Independent项目所在的位置,确定为该区最高的发展项目。我们希望这栋大楼最终成为该区的代表性标志,为社区带来新的定位。”这听起来好像没什么,但一旦做起来,就费力劳神了。快乐山四周的建筑不拘一格,如何让The Independent的设计即展示城市的活力又与周围融为一体,颇令搞了20多年地产的林蔚荣头痛,在找到对该区极为熟悉的得奖建筑师事务所Acton Ostry Architects后,整个设计团队几易其稿,最终展现出5种活力朝气兼备的建筑风貌。

“她将肯定会成为社区的标志。”林蔚荣自豪地说。

著名的瑞升建设公司(Rize Alliance Properties Ltd.)位于温哥华市中心的一幢摩天大楼的32层。摆满设计造型的公司大厅里,总裁林蔚荣就像个邻家兄弟一样谈笑风生,没有想像中的老板气息,倒像似一位年轻的艺术家,而且谈笑风生、诙谐幽默,很快,接待室里便充满了阵阵笑声。

林蔚荣的名字里姓是“林”,林后面是“蔚”,表示茂盛;林木的茂盛带来的是“荣”。可见父亲为他取名时的一片期待之心。而他为自己的公司取名也有瑞气升腾之意。果不其然,他开发的一栋栋高楼大厦就在大温地区冉冉升起,直冲云霄。他本人也被主流社会评为2013年50位最有影响力人物之一。笑谈往事,他的回忆颇有公瑾当年羽扇纶巾的气派。

一、 少年辗转东西

林蔚荣介绍自己当年离开台湾的原因时说,怕共军的导弹打到台湾,不想服兵役,所以就跑到了哥斯达黎加(Costa Rica)。一听,就知道他是在开玩笑,那时他才13岁,离服兵役还差着猴年马月。

他母亲是虔诚的基督徒,在哥斯达黎加没呆多久,又经牧师介绍,带着孩子去到了美国南达科他州(South Dakota)的一个农村。一年后,他14岁那年,父亲把他发配到了加拿大曼省(Manitoba)去读书。
他父亲在台湾做医生,属于富有阶层,有6个孩子,哥哥姐姐下面,林蔚荣排行最小,父亲让他去寒冷的曼省读书,不是惩罚孩子,而是有着自己的一番打算。父亲在温哥华有房产,但认为温哥华是个花花世界,而曼省民风淳朴,孩子到了那里可以安心读书,将来上大学去学医,好继承自己的事业。父亲认为,海外就业不易,医生是最好的职业之一,做了医生就捧上了铁饭碗,今后就生活无忧了。他的哥哥就是按父亲的意愿做了医生。

读完中学,他考上了曼尼托巴大学,第二年就制定了自己的专业为金融管理,没有选医学。他微微一笑说:“父亲一听这消息,气得3天没睡好觉。”

1988年大学毕业后,他就跟着哥哥来到了温哥华,他的第一份工作是在一家台湾人办的金属出口公司打工。

他从小就走南闯北,在不同的地域接触到不同的文化,开阔了视野,激发了少年志向。打工一年多积累了工作经验,他就要自己创业了。当时世博会刚结束,香港李嘉诚在温哥华市中心大举开发房地产。他受到了启发,看准了温哥华的房地产市场,决定投身地产开发行业,和建筑师合作找地盖房子。

二、 耶鲁镇逆势发迹

他花了3年的时间准备,不断地找地、设计方案,期间经历了不少挫折。最终,他把眼光瞄在了耶鲁镇(Yaletown)。

那时的耶鲁镇是一大片工业仓库区,荒凉而寂静。他到过美国纽约,感觉耶鲁镇很有点像美国纽约的苏豪区。苏豪区原是一片工厂区,随着工厂搬迁,该区房屋因租金低廉价而吸引了大批艺术家进驻。艺术家们在那里设办公室,开摄影楼,兴旺了该区的文化,也带动了临近地区数十年的快速发展。因此,他要把耶鲁镇打造成纽约的苏豪区。

1992年,林蔚荣主意一定,就开始筹集资金。当时和一朋友约好每人各出35万加币,他从父亲那儿借了35万,答应今后要还;可朋友事到临头说拿不出钱了,他要自己继续去寻找另外的35万。

没找到另外的35万,他打起了耶鲁镇地主的主意,游说地主和他合资一起来开发耶鲁镇。那位白人地主看着眼前这位乳臭未干的年轻小伙子,满腹狐疑,没有答应。可过了几个月,终于经不住林蔚荣的劝说,答应和他一起干。

于是,他们合伙成立了一家公司,开始在耶鲁镇大兴土木。他自封为工地清洁副总裁,每天在工地捡垃圾,和工人聊天,学习建筑知识。那时耶鲁镇杂草丛生、没人住,很多过路人看到他们在施工都好奇地跑过来问他们在干什么?当对方听说是在盖住宅时,都惊讶地睁大眼睛,然后丢下一句“Good luck”,就走了。

他知道路人所说的“Good luck”其中的含义。那时李嘉诚在温哥华的第一块卖得不好,是因为那块地的名声不佳,晚上有嫖客出没。而耶路镇那时也很乱,路人看到他们在耶鲁镇盖宿舍,以为他们神经有问题。那时他全凭着年轻大胆,敢于放手一搏。可是多年以后证明,他们打造的耶鲁镇,真的成为了艺术家汇聚的场所,不亚于美国纽约的苏豪区。而他们成了最早开发耶鲁镇的先驱。

他做的第一个项目就有11个单位,里面还有2各店面。很多人第一个项目都赔钱,可他初试牛刀就旗开得胜,赚得了第一桶金。他父亲是空中飞人,1994年来加拿大看他,他开着新买的大奔去接父亲,不仅还给了父亲35万元,还多加了许多利息。父亲对母亲说:“想不到这小子还钱还得很大方。”母亲告诉他:“你父亲当时借给你钱时曾说这笔钱别指望拿回来了,别赔光了就好。”如今,父亲终于看到,儿子虽没有遵照他的意愿学医,但却凭着自己的努力走上了一条比铁饭碗更有成就感的康庄大道。

记者问他:“你当时身为亚裔,又是年轻人,是如何让白人老板这样相信你,和你一起干的?”他说:“加拿大实际上是个很公平的社会,身为亚裔反而是件好事。对方会尊重你来自不同族裔的背景,多给一些时间听完你的构想。”他感觉,加拿大这个国家很包容,给每个人以机会。

那以后,他又对耶鲁镇进行了更大的改造,每次改造,他都要求前瞻、创意和品味。

三、做人之不敢做

林蔚荣说,大温地区每年有4万人涌入,但盖出的房子只有2万户,赶不上人口持续增长的速度,因此,建设行业有着很好的发展前景。从91年到现在,他的公司建设的楼盘总价值已超过8亿,包括位于温市中心Granville街,保留其历史风貌的大楼The Rolston;位于Mount Pleasant的OnQue;位于Yaletown的Metropolis;位于列治文Hamilton1230号的Centro;以及卑诗省Sunshine Coast内David Bay的独立屋项目等。

谈到开发温市位于Kingsway夹Broadway的Independent 项目,还遇到了一些曲折。当时那块地政府只批准盖100户,他觉得太浪费,想改成300户。当地居民原来停车很方便,买菜不用排队,要是一下子增加人口密度,必定会影响当地居民的生活。由于不断有当地居民上诉,市公听会连续召开了7个星期,超过200人进行抗议。在一般人认为,这个项目肯定是干不成了。可是,他们经过执着的努力,竟然通过了批准,把100户改成了300户,4层改到了21层,拿下了这个项目,让人们跌破眼镜。

这个发展项目获得批准,不论对市府、瑞升建设或当地的艺术团体都是大好消息。因为当地艺术团体可从瑞升建设回馈给市府的1260万元中,取得共450万元经费。

在发展位于温市中心的The Rolston项目时,当地有一座100年的建筑已成古迹,他们花了300万进行翻新。他们把楼下古迹级的酒店装修保留下来租给商场。楼上有44个客房漏水,几乎不能住人,他们花了620万进行基础改造、室内装修,使44间房焕然一新,然后赠送给市政府,作为低收入者的廉租屋,和给当地一些艺术家作为工作室、画廊。他们还引进新的商机,移入一些新的超市,提高了这一地区的商业档次,增加了这一地区的服务项目,使这一地区变得更有吸引力。

林蔚荣说:“当时也是有一种韧性,年轻人敢于冒险,没想太多,觉得是对的就去做了。做生意最需要的是平衡,我们要赚钱,又要对社会有贡献,否则就做不稳。”的确,他的这些项目不仅赚到了钱,而且都为当地居民带来了美好生活,具有良好的社会效益。

林蔚荣介绍道,他们今年秋天还要在温哥华推出一个大的项目,将近300个单位、22层、30万平方尺。楼下是店面,楼上是住宅。温哥华的项目普遍不大,一个建商推出3、400个单位市场就暂时饱和了。

四、以创意和前瞻来胜算

2012年3月26日,在素里市中心商场(Surrey Central City Mall)内特别搭建了一个玻璃展示厅,在玻璃厅内,三位专业演员在里面表演了45天的真人秀,同时还有8名配角配合演出。来自维多利亚艺术大学的余佩然在剧中饰演莉莉Lily Lee,她正在给自己的好友帕姆(Parm)打电话。帕姆哭诉自己被男友抛弃了,热心的莉莉便让帕姆暂时搬来和自己及丈夫约翰(John)一起同住。于是,3个人的生活便开始了。他们的演出是按加拿大广播公司的专业编剧撰写的“每日生活内容”来进行,观众既可现场观看,也可通过facebook、twitter及社交网络追踪故事发展详情。

这是一个645平方呎的两房一厅的两居室,房内的墙壁都是可移动的装饰玻璃,可供人根据需要自行分割空间,3个人便在室内变换着房间的格局,以最舒适的方式生活着。他们在里面工作、学习、聊天、做饭,当要“方便”的时候,便假称出外买东西而暂时离开。他们每到商场开门时就进入房间表演“生活”;商场关门,他们也生活完毕离去。他们这是演的哪出戏?

原来,这是林蔚荣的瑞升建设公司(Rize Alliance)独出心裁设计的为推广其在素里市中心的两栋新建高层公寓及城市屋计划“Wave”而举行的市场宣传活动。商场里人流如梭,无数观众透过全透明玻璃在观看演员表演的同时,也了解了这套样板房的格局和装饰搭配。

林蔚荣的这场推介活动在素里可谓史无前例,而他在素里这两栋楼盘的建造上也算是高瞻远瞩,颇具前瞻性。他认为,素里市正在打造“大温第二市中心”,因此素里的房市未来20年将会有很大升值空间。随着大温地区亚裔移民的增多,平价的小单位住房将会受到年轻人和新移民的青睐,“精巧别致,弹性居住空间”的风潮也将由欧亚大陆刮到北美,“简洁舒适小而精致”的居住理念也将会受到人们的推崇。很多在温哥华买不起房子,但又对住宿环境不愿降低标准的人,就可考虑去素里发展。

为此,他不惜血本,在素里打造了两座带有前卫弧线形设计的28层高的住宅大楼。大楼内的设施包括屋顶露台、带烧烤设备的观景庭院、健身房、活动室、儿童游戏室、工艺室、车库、洗车配套、宠物梳洗配套和花园等设施一应俱全。

林蔚荣说,他个人最满意的是有波浪形的阳台,那个设计是他自己想出来的。他在大学是学商科的,虽没学过设计,但从小就学习画画,加上这些年在房地产行业的熏陶,已对设计颇有心得,他们的项目在设计上比较高标准、严要求。

在大温房地产发展行业摸爬滚打20余年,林蔚荣的瑞升建设已完成大小十余件精心打造的作品。每件作品从买地、设计、建设,到完成销售,都要经历大约5年的时间。 5年的时间,什么事都有可能发生,国际风云、加国局势的变幻,都有可能带来金融市场的动荡。房地产投资80%靠银行融资,因为杠杆的原理,银行任何的小动作对建商都是大动作,有时要冒很大的风险,因此要充满信心支撑得住。水到了100度都会滚,但有一个过程,做好过程中的每一件事都影响着未来的结果。

2008年全球经济低迷,很多建筑商撑不住,倒闭了。而林蔚荣对他的瑞升建设进行了重组,把一些从倒闭企业出来的人才吸引了过去,不仅转危为安生存了下来,而且还发展壮大了。林蔚荣感慨道,企业发展最主要的是人才,资金是一方面,人才更重要,人才做得好资金自然就会到位。有时危机也能变成契机,2008年的金融海啸反而帮助他以更低的成本兴建大型项目。

温哥华主流媒体Vancouver Magazine公布了卑诗省50位最有影响力人物,前三名分为省长简蕙芝、市长罗品信、温哥华首富派特森(Jim Pattison),6位华人也荣登该榜,其中就有林蔚荣。瑞升建设公司的大厅里还摆放着一些建筑行业颁发的各种奖项。林蔚荣在交谈中似乎并不着意介绍太多的自我,而是不断地询问对方,向他人征求社会、经济等方面的信息,表现出浓厚的谦虚好学精神。或许正是这种精神使得他在诡异莫测的商海中谈笑间高楼拔地而起。

伴随着温哥华快乐山The Independent项目的开盘,2015年,林蔚荣的瑞升建筑梦想拥有了一个不凡的开局。  --- 2015 January 20  LAHOO




Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Ho Tung Mansion

The Peak





























Ho Tung Gardens exemplifies a mixture of Chinese and Western cultural elements. 

During Hotung's time, The Peak was reserved for Europeans. Chinese were not allowed to live there. 

Hotung, a Eurasian, was the first non- European to receive permission from the government to build a home in the area. Ho Tung Gardens marked the rising status of the local community.




Saturday, January 17, 2015

Indonesia


The Next China?

Indonesia emerging as a new Asian powerhouse







































































Mahni Suyoso sits beaming in the passenger seat of a bright red pickup truck as it rolls slowly through the bustling streets of central Jakarta.
She’s in a parade featuring jubilant brass bands and volunteers throwing out water and treats to the crowd, mostly local office workers. In the back of the truck is a 1.8-metre-tall pyramid of wired-together eggplants, carrots, snake beans, cabbages, tomatoes, corn and a pile of yellow rice – along with the national flag.
It’s the celebration of a new Indonesia.
Ms. Mahni, an entrepreneur with eight restaurants, had the vegetables dug from her farm to showcase rural prosperity, and then piled into the vehicle with her employees to drive a day and a half across Java from the small city of Wonosobo. Indonesia was finally inaugurating a president they thought was worth honouring: Joko Widodo, known to all as Jokowi.
Ms. Mahni is elated, she explains, because Jokowi is a successful, hard-working business person from a small city, just like her – not part of the old Jakarta elite who have dominated politics since the fall of Suharto in 1998.
“I’m from the village, I don’t have any education, but I know money,” says Ms. Mahni, 42, as she secures a Jokowi headband around her turquoise head scarf. “He became successful from business, not from corruption. Jokowi knows how to make us prosper.”
Indonesia is experiencing a burst of unprecedented economic and political optimism. The world’s fourth most populous country, with some 250 million people, is emerging as a powerhouse of Southeast Asia, at the dawn of an awakening that many compare to pre-boom China three decades ago.
After decades of dictatorship and corruption, the country is quickly shifting course with the election of a political outsider that many think will usher in a new era of sustainable economic growth.
Global companies, eager to get in on the ground floor, are racing to invest and sell consumer goods to Indonesia’s rapidly-growing middle class.
Ottawa-based billionaire investor Sir Terence Matthews compares Indonesia to China in the late 1980s. He just opened a Jakarta office for his investment firm Wesley Clover, which has extensive holdings in technology and real estate.
Sir Terence struck his first joint venture in Beijing in 1980. “I’ve been doing business in this region for well over 30 years and I generally avoided deals in Indonesia,” he says in an interview.
But that has now changed. “Timing in life is almost everything – I don’t care whether it’s sex, a new market or a new product,” Sir Terence says. “We think timing for Indonesia is good. The government feels the same way.”
The country is still vulnerable to sudden capital outflows, and there are lingering concerns about the regulatory and legal framework. But with Jokowi as President, business people and foreign investors – as well as ordinary citizens – are hopeful his reformist government will build desperately-needed infrastructure, clamp down on corruption and liberate the country’s vast potential.
Cameron Tough, a Canadian who works in investor relations for PT Adaro Energy, a major coal miner, says “Indonesia in the next 10 years will blow us all away.”
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as ‘Jokowi.’ Wong Maye-E/Associated Press

Targeting corruption

Indonesia’s economy, the biggest of the various Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, has posted growth on average of about 5 per cent a year for a decade, and exports doubled to $204-billion in the five years leading up to 2011.
The country has an abundance of natural resources, and boomed as China gobbled them up: It is the world’s largest producer of thermal coal, tin and nickel. It has vast supplies of oil and gas, and is by far the biggest exporter of palm oil. Japanese investors seeking strong returns as their economy sputters at home have become the largest foreign investors in Indonesia – and their footprint is visible from bank towers and infrastructure projects to the Yamaha motorcycles zipping through Jakarta’s gridlock.
But corruption has been a problem for years, bleeding away state revenues that could have been used to build infrastructure and pay for services. Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission has been making headway, and Jokowi even had his cabinet vetted; financial institutions were approached for financial records and several potential cabinet ministers were excluded. He’s appointed technocrats to key economic portfolios. And most importantly, Jokowi has acted quickly since his inauguration on Oct. 20 to slash Indonesia’s fuel subsidy – which, combined with other other subsidies, ate up one-fifth of the national budget in 2012, more than three times the spending on infrastructure. That will free up money to build roads and ports that will help growth.
“I remember my grandfather saying ‘Watch Brazil,’” says Francisco Goncalves, a Canadian who heads PT McElhanney Indonesia, a mapping firm that works with clients such as mining giant Rio Tinto. “They were doing nothing. Then they woke up. I think it’s the same thing with Indonesia. It has everything.”
Many worried Jokowi would lose the election to Prabowo Subianto, a former army general under Suharto, who ruled the country for three decades. But with Jokowi in charge, a new approach to business is already visible. Chris Bendl, the chief executive officer of Manulife Indonesia, said two of his Indonesian executives were interviewed by the new President’s transition team.
“That would never happen in the past,” Mr. Bendl says. “The fact that they’re listening to the business community is a positive sign.”
Manulife, which has more than two million customers in the country, is getting a slice of the lucrative growing consumer class. Mr. Bendl says barriers to entry in Indonesia are high, but local partnerships can help foreign companies overcome the challenging logistics – and reach the people. Manulife, for example, partnered with a bank that had deliberately opened branches next to traditional Indonesian markets in order to give out small loans to the vendors. They now also sell them insurance. “It’s a distribution play, more than any other,” Mr. Bendl says.
Although national income is still only $3,580 (U.S.) a person, it’s on the rise. Consulting firm McKinsey estimates that Indonesia’s middle class numbers about 45 million, an already large market for goods and services that could grow to more than 135 million people by 2030. Boston Consulting Group estimates that number may be even higher, saying in 2013 that there is around 74 million Indonesians in families that spend $200 or more a month who are about to “ramp up” spending on everything from household items to financial services, creating a “critical window of opportunity” for consumer goods companies.
Regional discount airlines such as Lion Group and AirAsia have made record aircraft orders – one Lion Air order for 234 Airbus aircraft was $24-billion – as they struggle to keep up with rapid growth in Indonesia and its ASEAN neighbours.
Western brands, lured by millions of consumers with newly disposable income, are seeing strong growth in Indonesia. Unilever Indonesia has seen steady sales for its soaps and soups through a network of 500 distributors with hundreds of thousands of outlets. Best Western International, citing “an important period in the history of Indonesia,” is expanding rapidly from just five hotels in Indonesia in 2013 to 31 by the end of 2015. And despite infrastructure challenges, corporations, from Japan’s Honda and South Korea’s LG to General Motors, have opened up factories here – helping turn the country into a manufacturing hub for Southeast Asia.
The furniture-making district on the outskirts of Solo, Indonesia. Iain Marlow/The Globe and Mail

Infrastructure bottlenecks

On the way out of Jokowi’s hometown of Solo, a mid-sized city in central Java, the main road begins winding past hundreds of tiny, wholesale furniture stores displaying newly made cabinets, ornately carved doors and dining room tables. Some of the shops have freshly hewn logs out front, or heaps of stacked rattan – hints of Indonesia’s tropical climate and booming forestry sector.
After an hour, a side road veers over a bridge and onto a gravel road lined with bamboo. It is here, across from a field of freshly planted peanuts, that Jokowi started the furniture export business that led him to the presidency. On this afternoon, a truck has backed a 12-metre Evergreen shipping container up to one of the warehouses. In the shade near some parked motorcycles, Sehadi, a 42-year-old machine operator who goes by one name like many Indonesians, explains that he was here at the beginning. He briefly left Jokowi’s firm for a better salary, but returned – not for more money, but because Jokowi was a good boss.
“He started very small. He started with a team of 10 staff. He even drove an ugly car in the beginning” says Mr. Sehadi, drawing laughs from colleagues. “When Jokowi was here, it was very nice. He treated employees really well.”
By the time Jokowi shocked his friends by running to become mayor of Solo, Jokowi’s factory was dispatching about 80 containers a month to overseas markets, according to one local businessman. Jokowi, who travelled internationally to industry conferences in the U.S. and Europe, grew a profitable business in a country that the World Bank currently ranks at a dismal 114 in ease of doing business (out of 189 countries).
Boosting manufacturing is crucial if Indonesia wants to find decent-paying jobs for the roughly 16 million young graduates flooding the job market in the next six years, who will fail to find meaningful work if gross domestic product growth remains below 6 per cent, according to the Asian Development Bank.
“That’s still below Indonesia’s potential,” says Edimon Ginting, the bank’s deputy country director in Indonesia. “The solution is structural reform.”
For a furniture maker in Solo, structural reform would involve removing the infrastructure bottlenecks that have choked expanding firms – particularly at the hundreds of ports that dot the shorelines of this massive, archipelagic nation.
Supriyadi, a friend of Jokowi’s, owns a furniture exporter in Solo that directly employs 240 people, indirectly employs another 600 weavers and artisans, and pulls in about $2.5-million (U.S.) a year shipping rattan furniture to the U.S., Sweden, Mexico and Canada. As he strolls through his cavernous factory, past chairs destined for Pier One Imports, Supriyadi details his frustrations. Whether he’s getting raw materials from the massive islands of Sumatra or Kalimantan, or shipping out finished products from Solo, the poor condition of Indonesia’s ports is a constant irritant.
Smaller barges are often necessary for transfers to larger boats, resulting in extra costs and delays, he says. And because it’s only possible to use seven-metre containers between Indonesia’s thousands of smaller islands, it becomes prohibitively expensive to ship within Indonesia. It is often more expensive to ship goods from one Indonesian island to another than it is to ship from Indonesia to Singapore, China and even Rotterdam. This prevents Indonesian businesses from taking full advantage of their own domestic market.
For example, buying a sack of cement in the remote islands of eastern Indonesia can cost 10 times what it would cost on Java, where nearly 60 per cent of Indonesians live. In many smaller ports, goods are unloaded by hand. But even in Jakarta, it can take eight days before a waiting freighter can enter a major port, according to local consultant Paul Rowland.
Jokowi understands all this, Supriyadi says, and that’s why he’s optimistic. “Jokowi’s going to fix the system,” Supriyadi says.
The Indonesian President’s old neighbour, Sutarti. Iain Marlow/The Globe and Mail

Working-class support

On the banks of the river where Jokowi swam as a boy, more than a dozen children squat with fishing rods. His old neighbour, Sutarti, 62, strolls the narrow lanes of shacks that still make up this riverside shanty town. She recalls Jokowi as a simple boy from an average family, who played marbles and flew kites. She would occasionally take him to his uncle’s place on the back of a bicycle she has since thrown out. “If I knew he was going to become president, I would have kept it,” she laughs.
It is in working-class communities like this – first in Solo and then in Jakarta where he was elected governor – where Jokowi forged a key part of his appeal: What people here call blusukan – effectively, dropping in on poor communities to negotiate with residents. In later years, this also meant surprising civil servants to ensure accountability.
But he learned it under tutelage. When political neophyte Jokowi first ran as mayor of Solo, he partnered with veteran grassroots organizer F.X. Hadi Rudyatmo. Mr. Rudyatmo became Jokowi’s deputy, but was also the businessman’s mentor as he transitioned to politics.
“I introduced Jokowi to the people,” says Mr. Rudyatmo, who became mayor of Solo when Jokowi moved on. “At the beginning of blusukan,” he adds, “there were a lot of complaints [from Jokowi]. He was cold. He got sick.”
But it worked. Though dismissed by some as a gimmick, blusukan got results. It earned Jokowi respect from communities – particularly among street vendors and other urban poor who needed to move for infrastructure projects – that helped power re-elections in both Solo and Jakarta.
After winning their first mayoral term with 36 per cent of the vote in Solo, they won a second term with more than 90 per cent after dozens of meetings allowed him to peacefully move street hawkers to a new trading area. Jokowi then moved on to Jakarta, where he scored numerous successes in the gridlocked capital. Jokowi introduced universal health care, issuing cards that empowered citizens to demand medical services.
In Jakarta, he eventually broke ground on a desperately-needed subway system. He negotiated land rights for a crucial ring road, where his predecessors also failed. Jokowi ventured into slums to relocate residents from a flood catchment area to north Jakarta, where he arranged for subsidized apartments, free TVs and fridges, as well as a sea bus route to take the residents – many of them maids and construction workers – back to their old neighbourhood jobs.
Sitting in front of a new apartment, Preyetno, a local village head, said residents originally didn’t want to move, despite constant flooding. But Jokowi convinced them. “Everything was explained to the people in great detail,” Preyetno says. “We even ate together” with Jokowi. “We had a big feast. We all sat on the floor.”
But can a president directly negotiate across an archipelago of more than 10,000 islands? In interviews across Solo and Jakarta, in working-class communities won over by Jokowi, people repeatedly expressed the unrealistic hope that Jokowi would still pop by to see them.
Mr. Sulistyo says that with technology, Jokowi can engage in “e-blusukan,” but another on Jokowi’s team, the pollster Saiful Mujani, laughs at the term.
“E-blusukan? What is that?” asks Mr. Mujani, noting he worries about the public’s huge expectations. “He’s so busy and Indonesia’s so big.”
Even his former neighbour Ms. Sutarti, who says she still celebrates Ramadan with Jokowi’s mother, has found her links to Jokowi severed, much to her disappointment. “It’s very hard to meet Jokowi nowadays, but we still pray for Jokowi,” she says.
Young Indonesians at a rally for President Joko Widodo. Iain Marlow/The Globe and Mail

Rising middle class

Despite misconceptions that Indonesia is a pure commodity play or overly reliant on manufacturing exports, McKinsey argues that the economy is driven largely by domestic consumption and services. In a recent survey, the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 171 business and discovered that cheap labour ranked 10th among reasons for manufacturing products in Southeast Asia. The No. 1 reason was access to the rising middle class.
In addition to being a hot market for Manulife, for years Indonesia was also BlackBerry Ltd.’s most crucial emerging-market bastion. “We had a pretty small team doing some pretty serious business,” says Andy Cobham, who used to lead the firm’s local operations.
Of course, the economy has slowed in recent quarters. Cooling Chinese demand has dampened prices for commodities, which make up more than half of Indonesia’s exports. And the U.S. Federal Reserve’s clawback of bond-buying stimulus led to huge capital outflows, which put pressure on the Indonesian currency. But a depressed currency, combined with expected infrastructure-building and Jokowi’s desire for – and knowledge of – small and medium-sized business, could lead to expanding manufacturing and exporting. This would improve incomes, boosting consumption and the economy.
Even an export ban on unprocessed minerals slapped in place by the previous government, which took effect in 2014 to the dismay of miners, could eventually help domestic manufacturing, balancing out an extractive sector that has been criticized by environmentalists.
Still, Indonesia has been a risky place. Mr. Cobham, who notes that the country remains a volatile place to invest, knows this better than most. In 2009, he was having a regular breakfast meeting when a suicide bomber walked into the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta and detonated explosives. Mr. Cobham spent 10 weeks in the hospital. “We were targeted,” he said.
But even though he’s cautious, he’s still here. In fact, he was hired to lead the new Jakarta office of Sir Terence’s Wesley Clover investment firm.

Virtuous circle of investment

Sitting in a wooden pavilion at his restaurant in Solo, Slamet Raharjo – who also owns a handicrafts company and founded an exporters’ association with Jokowi – motions to the road. It used to be full of hawkers, he says, but Jokowi relocated the vendors and remodelled the street on Singapore’s Orchard Road. The improved atmosphere convinced Mr. Raharjo to expand his restaurant, which serves chilled tamarind-flavoured drinks and chicken satay on lemon grass stalks.
As Jokowi begins his promised overhaul of Indonesia’s vast port system, Mr. Raharjo is so confident that he plans to open up a brand-new fisheries business. But unlike with his other export-oriented business, he’s planning to take advantage of Indonesia’s vast domestic market. And he’s just one of many with such plans: He says new ports would be the start of many new businesses, and mentions hoteliers he knows that are already planning to take new chances on more distant islands – like they once did with Solo when Jokowi was in charge, sparking a cultural and economic renaissance in the city. This creates a virtuous circle of investment that he sees spreading through the archipelago.
“There is a new hope among business people,” he says, noting that the vote he cast for Jokowi this past summer was the first vote he’s ever cast in a general election.
“Everything is changing.”  -- 2015 January 17  GLOBE & MAIL