Vybrané globální problémy z pohledu ekonomického diplomata

Tento blog byl v jiném formátu přednesen autorem v rámci „1st International Conference on Business Diplomacy“, která se konala na Windesheim University ve Zwolle 4.12.2015. Zpracovává „populárně-vědeckým“ způsobem vybraná témata.

Např. diplomacie v businessu, komerční a ekonomická diplomacie, problematika omezených kapacit, EU, OECD, udržitelný a digitální rozvoj, vyhýbání se daním, PPP spolupráce a nadnárodní společnosti. Vzhledem k délce tohoto blogu doporučuji číst jej selektivním způsobem… Čtenáři, kteří neovládají dostatečným způsobem angličtinu, mohou využít např. https://translate.google.cz/. Přeji všem poučné a/nebo příjemné čtení. 

Selected global challenges in view of economic diplomat

Selected practical cases and questions from the business, trade and commercial diplomacy

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This blog was prepared by Roman Holý in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, or the Embassy.

Abstract

Purpose
This blog provides a few practical cases and questions in the framework of selected global challenges from the experience of a practitioner - commercial diplomat that have been chosen according to the combination of relevant experience and legitimacy issues.

Design/methodology/approach
This empirical study has no conceptual or theoretical ambitions. The approach of a multiple case study was chosen as it provides high-level view of different cases and questions describing practical aspects of selected theoretical topics in the work of a commercial diplomat in the framework of the International Business. Thus the simple narrative descriptions are shown below to provide some important or interesting elements in order to yield different and practical details of Business and Commercial diplomacy which are often different than the theoretical conclusions and outcomes. Hence, some challenges have been selected and analysed as it is assumed that narrative may provide a good insight into the decision-making and into the processes of Business and Commercial diplomacy.

Findings
It covers the role of the commercial diplomacy in the EU, the challenges of limited capacities, the comparison of OECD guidelines vs. EU acquis communautaire, the sustainable development in the EU and in developing countries, the impact and potential of digitalization, some notes on the tax avoidance, and the importance of public-private partnership.

Originality/value
This study provides practical context for some global challenges and issues from the point of view of commercial diplomat. There is also a trial for the new definition of Commercial diplomacy and comparison of approaches of Business, Commercial, and Trade diplomacy to these issues.

Keywords

Business Diplomacy, Embassy, Commercial Diplomacy, Practical Cases, Global Challenges

Introduction and theory

Business and commercial diplomacy has an increasing role in our more and more globalized world. This blog examines the different issues from the perspective of a commercial diplomat. The objective is to provide the narrative cases on chosen legitimacy challenges and global issues concerning the EU, OECD, sustainable development, tax avoidance, or public-private partnerships. There were two main inspiration resources for this blog – the inauguration lecture Ruël (2013) “Diplomacy Means Business” and the master thesis Haaf (2010) “Commercial Diplomacy and the Role of Embassies”.

Similarly, as Ruël and Wolters (2014), we see business and corporate diplomacy as practical synonyms. If we want some more differentiation, then I suggest to perceive them as two parts of the same process or concept but corporate diplomacy describing the internal activities and business diplomacy labelling the external activities and outputs. Thus I can accept the definition by Ruël (2013) that “business diplomacy is the representation and communication activities deployed by international businesses with host government representatives and non-governmental representatives in order to establish and sustain a positive relationship to maintain legitimacy and a license to operate.”

For my blog I will need also the definition of multilateral diplomacy which can be defined “as the management of international relations by negotiations among three or more states through diplomatic or governmental representatives” (Rahim, 2015). Finally, for the commercial diplomacy we could use the different definitions provided in the thesis by Haaf (2010) but I would like to propose my own definition of the successful commercial diplomacy that “should help home country (both public & private) actors to find or even to create new business opportunities in the foreign country markets. It does this through its financial and non-financial capacities – networks, knowledge, properties, people, processes, projects, publications, etc. Simply said, turning global and local challenges into business opportunities!”

I have tried to provide certain examples of different approaches and activities in reaction towards the selected global issues and legitimacy challenges in the Table 1.

Global Issue / Legitimacy Challenge

Business diplomacy

Multilateral (inter-governmental) / State diplomacy

Commercial diplomacy

Digitalization

Table 1: Examples of different approaches and activities in reaction towards the selected global issues and legitimacy challenges in Business diplomacy, Multilateral (inter-governmental) / State diplomacy, and Commercial diplomacy

Challenges and Issues - Cases and Questions

Challenges of the commercial diplomacy in the EU

This section summarizes shortly the challenge of the commercial diplomacy in the EU member state. Does the Economic diplomacy in the Netherlands and in the EU make sense at all? First I would like to answer this "philosophical" question by the general “yes”. Here I have to agree with Mr. President Miloš Zeman, and H.M. King Willem-Alexander, and perhaps most precisely, with the US Secretary of State, John F. Kerry (2013) - “More than ever, foreign policy is economic policy.” By the way, this was also confirmed in practice by the actions and by the blog of the former US Ambassador in Prague, H.E. Norman L. Eisen (2014) who had started the first day in his office by meeting Mr. Anders Jackson, Westinghouse‘s President of the EMEA Region, and by supporting him in the Westinghouse’s bid for the 28 billion USD Temelín, the Czech nuclear power plant, expansion contract. I think this is a very strong example of the commercial diplomacy by US Ambassador and in the same time the instance of successful or excessive lobbying by Westinghouse.

And specifically in the Netherlands or in the EU? Candidly, I can understand these views which say that economic or commercial counsellors in the EU are useless (I myself thought the same before I was assigned to The Hague ...). We have the European single market, theoretically without any internal borders or other regulatory obstacles to the free movement of goods and services. In addition, there is so much information available on the Internet, thus it should be indeed easy to do business in the EU.

Nevertheless, in the real business life, a large number of other barriers and challenges remain - linguistic, psychological, cultural, legal, monetary, financial or geographical to name just some. And we, commercial diplomats, do help to overcome these obstacles – based on several inquiries weekly from both Czech companies and, perhaps surprisingly, even more from the Dutch firms. Furthermore, there is an important quantitative criterion – the Czech export to the Netherlands is about 4 mld. EUR per year (and growing again) and the Czech export for example to China (also for me the world market no. 1) is approximately 1.5 mld. EUR and although its annual growth is about 15%, I estimate that export to the Netherlands will exceed that one to China, according to the simple extrapolation, at least till year 2020. So, with all due respect, I serve in principle to more companies with the greater volume of exports than all my colleagues in China. So, there is the challenge of lower commercial priority of the EU and on the other side growing demand and volume of trade inside of the EU.

Now, the question is: which country is more important for our, Czech and Dutch, exports and economies – Germany or China?

Challenges of limited capacities

During my first study researching different foreign services (Holý, 2005), I read the book by B. Hocking (1999) “Foreign ministries: change and adaptation” where it is stated that foreign ministries, including commercial diplomats, have to do ever more with ever less resources. The development of the Czech (Czechoslovak) commercial diplomacy capacities in the Netherlands provides a nice example for this. Due to the growing agenda, mainly commercial, but also the press, and political information, the second building was bought in 1920 (based on S. Sklenářová, 2010). In 1922, there was total (max.) number of 15 employees of the Czechoslovak embassy in The Hague. During the times of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1960–90) there were many commercial diplomats, logically, as the international trade was completely secured by the state. Yet, in 2004 two commercial diplomats – counsellor and his attaché – were working at the Embassy. In addition to that, two employees of the CzechTrade (Czech Trade Promotion Agency) were active in Rotterdam in those years. And now? The position of the commercial attaché has been cancelled, similarly as the positions of the consular assistant and the diplomat for EU affairs. Thus I have to substitute the consul as well when he is absent and I am supposed to cover many tasks concerning the EU as briefings or the research for the Dutch positions on different EU issues, as requested by headquarters. In total, based on my sincere estimates, I dedicate cca 15% of my time to the service for companies, in addition to that I spend cca 40% on preparing, participating, and reporting on different, mainly economic or business, events. So, there are practically only two part-time workers available for companies – myself and the CzechTrade director in Rotterdam.

As a result, there is the challenge that we are less but we should do more – new sector and trends analyses, new processes, new planning, and higher standards of services for companies, more coordination with other agencies, and always more bureaucracy. However, sometimes too much is too much. On the other hand, I know embassies with only two diplomats (Ambassador + 1) in The Hague and I admire that very much as this means that usually one diplomat must do the job of at least four people (even though typically quite less consular affairs but still). So naturally they have to be much more selective and the pressure is enormous. And it must be difficult to keep the quality high. My personal approach and consultancy advice would be that it was better to keep a smaller number of embassies and consulates with more employees at each one. The problem of small embassies has also been demonstrated in the internal report by Deloitte (2006) where it was estimated (measured) that small embassies spend more than 65% of their capacities in order to keep themselves running, i.e. by the supporting processes and purely administrative work and not by the key processes (like foreign policy analysis or commercial diplomacy).

Of course, some savings and better effectivity and productivity can always be made but how far can we go like that?

Challenges of OECD and EU

First, I must admit that I am biased as I spent (and loved it) four years with the OECD in Paris and only less than two weeks in total with the EU in Brussels (and did not like it so much).

The  paper of L. Fienhold (2014) investigates  the  relationship  between  risks  to  multinational corporations (MNCs) involved  in conducting  international  business  diplomacy  and  the  possible  facilitating  effect  of the  OECD  Guidelines  for  Multinational  Enterprises. Only one of five analysed companies (and only partially) applied the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises to particular aspects of their internal regulations. But all companies, if they are active in the European Union, have to follow and comply with many EU Directives and Regulations; the list is available at EU Directives and other official acts (2015). On the one side (OECD) it is usually only the “soft law” – peer reviews, recommendations and guidelines, on the other side (EU) it is the “hard” binding law which has its impacts and costs.

This is also discussed by Marcussen & Trondal (2011) where it is stated that “OECD reports and the very particular OECD peer-review technique were defining characteristics of the organization, other international and national, public and private organizations now started to do similar activities.” Moreover, “organizations such as the IMF and the European Union were able to bolster their analyses with hard law and/or finance – something that the OECD has never been able to do. In competition with other expert organizations, the OECD has nothing but the better argument” which is not very often enough. The different importance and influence of these organizations can be confirmed by the personal and professional development of my predecessor who left the OECD also as its “lover” and overlooking slightly the EU positions and papers but after four years inside of the EU institutions in Brussels he came back as the EU guy and supporter. The second evidence is simple and quantitative - the Permanent Delegation of the Czech Republic to the OECD has 6 diplomats including the Ambassador and the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the EU has more than 70 diplomats comprising a few military representatives to the EU. The last indication could be the participation of ministers, deputy-ministers, or high-level officials. They usually go to the EU meetings every month but to the OECD only once a year (for Ministerial Council Meeting) and only exceptionally also for other meetings. All these numbers clearly show where resources, priorities, and the influence are.

But is this optimal? I do not think so as I do believe that we should use the expert and global evidence-based and peer review-based recommendations by the OECD a little bit more and, maybe, the EU law a little bit less. We could also say that the EU is challenged by the increasing level of bureaucracy and the danger of separation from the ordinary people. The OECD is in danger to be less and less relevant and becoming the “economic UN” organisation by increasing the number of member states and thus decreasing the level of like-mindedness (especially after Russian involvement).

Challenge of sustainable development in the EU and in developing countries

There is a challenge - huge discrepancy between the level of support of the sustainable development in the EU and in developing countries. We, in the EU, support individual farmers by subsidies of hundreds EUR per hectare or even per animal and in developing countries, there are billions of people living for less than one or two EUR per day.

To be more specific – the direct subsidy for farmers is projected in the range of 260 – 425 EUR (average is cca 389 EUR) per hectare in the Netherlands (Ministerie van Economische Zaken, 2014). Total financial support, including tax relieves, for the Dutch farmers and agro-food companies is at least 5 bil. EUR a year – based on Voskuilen, M. J., Luijt, J., Meulen, V. D. H., Silvis, F., & Velden, V. D. N. (2014) and own calculations. In France there is a slightly different system, their financial support is calculated per cattle in the range of 34 – 180 EUR per animal. A total budget for the EU Common Agricultural Policy for the period 2014-2020 is EUR 387 billion as stated in European Commission (2011).

Now we can compare these numbers with the allocations of the EC into development instruments as the Development and Cooperation Instrument, European Development Fund, Global Climate and Biodiversity Fund; and Emergency Aid Reserve that makes again for the period 2014-2020 the remarkable total of 424 billion EUR. But the numbers are much lower if we take them annually and only the net official development assistance (ODA) as calculated by the OECD/DAC (2015). In 2014, total net ODA from the 28 EU member states was USD 74.5 billion representing 0.41% of their GNI. Net disbursements by EU Institutions were USD 16.1 billion.

And now we could count the number of people living in poor or developing countries, that is cca 6 billion in total but this would not be fair as not all of them are poor indeed. On the contrary, some of them are very rich as it is also said that the ODA is the assistance from poor people in rich countries to the rich people in poor countries. So, let us count only really poor people which are cca 2.2 billion people that lived on less than USD 3.10 a day in 2011, the average poverty line in developing countries and another common measurement of deep deprivation according to the World Bank (2015). Thus based on the simple calculation we can say the EU member states support the poor people by the rough amount of 34 USD (74.5 divided by 2.2) that is less than the cheapest “French cow” and much less than the average Dutch farmer.

Is this right and ethically, not politically, correct from the human and developing perspective?

Of course, we could discuss the necessity of the support of farmers in developed countries or the usefulness of the ODA but this challenge would need another and long blog and to large extent this has already been done by somebody else – e.g. Anderson, K., & Martin, W. (2005), Elbehri, A., & Sarris, A. (2009, June), Moyo, D. (2009) or Collier, P. (2008).

Challenge of digitalization

In the report “Digital Infrastructure in the Netherlands - Driver for the Online Ecosystem” by Deloitte (2014), the importance of the Digital Infrastructure (Internet connectivity, colocation housing and hosting) for the Dutch economy is clearly shown. It also suggests that its function is similar to that of Schiphol Airport and the Port of Rotterdam.

The overall picture of the Internet economy has been described by the OECD (2015) Digital Economy Outlook. The Netherlands is among top ten exporters of ICT goods (4% of the total world trade in this category; growth 6% per year). But international trade in ICT services grows even faster than in ICT goods – 30% per year. For the Netherlands it meant again cca 4% share of total world ICT services exports or 13 billion USD in 2013.

The Netherlands is on the top position in all the online activities – sending e-mails, searching online, reading news online, e-banking, shopping online, or e-government (based on the OECD statistics, 2014). The strength of Dutch Internet economy is described by Deloitte (2014). The Dutch Internet economy is estimated to be 5.3% of GDP and increasing 9% a year. The digital infrastructure is an important enabler for direct employment in e-commerce and cloud services, providing jobs for at least 100,000 people. The estimated annual growth rate for the Infrastructure-as-a-Service is 19% between 2010 – 2018 and for the cloud services and data centres it is even 35% (2012 – 2017). The total value of the Dutch Internet economy, including private investments, government spending and trade, is an estimated 39 billion EUR.

Does it make clear, how important the digital part for our economies and lives is? Are governments and companies ready for this digital challenge?

Challenges of tax avoidance and tax attraction

What makes the Netherlands (and not the Czech Republic) so popular for the headquarters of large multinational corporations (MNCs) as well as for small "letter box" or intermediate companies that "only" transfer the profits from incoming dividends, interest and royalties from one country to another (1 750 companies from a total of 12 500 of intermediate (or “conduit”) companies)? It is not, according to the report Court of Audit (2014), only tax purposes but also other factors as an educated workforce (the university education and the knowledge of foreign languages!), socioeconomic stability, investment protection schemes, and certainly a long tradition. And as stated by my favourite economist Aleš Michl (2013): “There are other important factors – e.g. the stability and enforceability of the law or the fact that the Netherlands has a lot of exceptions to the taxation of income which is generated by the Dutch companies in the Czech Republic" as well as in other countries.

And all this makes the Netherlands a little bit more rich country – average dividend payments (total positive inflow) is annually about 4 mld. EUR; on royalties - 2.5 mld. EUR; and interest payments "only" 400 mil. EUR. When we include the estimated 3.5 mld. EUR from the related charges, activities and taxes of more than 13 000 highly skilled workers, then we get the nice lump-sum of 11 mld. EUR per annum, i.e. almost 2% of the Dutch GDP!

And what about the "Czech" companies registered (either directly or through the owners) in the Netherlands? The facts - statistics from Bisnode (2014) speak as follows - the number of Czech companies with owners from the Netherlands dropped slightly to 4,222, i.e. still roughly a third of all reported companies (13 167). Small note - I wonder if the Dutch Embassy in Prague protested against labelling the Netherlands as "tax haven"?

What I also find interesting, is the list of companies in the Czech Republic which pay the most taxes as published by General Financial Directorate (2015). I would like to name and thank at least three largest tax "payers" at this place – the 1st ČEZ Group (integrated electricity conglomerate), the 2nd Česká spořitelna, a.s. and the 3rd Komerční banka, a.s. (both banks). It is probably characteristic that the list of companies paying taxes is quite different from the list of companies that are domiciled in the Netherlands. Is it a coincidence? Is it right?

And finally, the most important question - how much money is transferred by this way from the Czech Republic? Of course there are only rough estimates which indicate that it is likely to be several tens of billions of CZK and the highest estimates reach up to 100 bil. CZK annually (or even up to 300 bil. CZK based on the analysis of the Government!) which is surprisingly almost the same amount what the other companies currently pay as the income tax (precisely 123 bil. CZK in 2014)!

There was the point of this case in the time of writing this paper - European Commission has just decided that selective tax advantages for Starbucks in the Netherlands are illegal under EU state aid rules and it would require Starbucks to pay tens of millions of Euros in back taxes. As rightly stated, Starbucks pays scarcely any tax in the Netherlands by shuffling royalties around while the ordinary (the Dutch one not the MNC) coffee shop on the corner pays taxes at the full rate. And inevitably, the less MNCs pay the taxes, the more other companies and employees have to pay.

Is this all right? I don’t think so; it is the Problem (challenge).

Challenge of Public-Private Partnership - Czech Dutch Chamber of Commerce

This final section describes the challenge of cooperation of the Embassy with the private sector. In 2014, we have helped to establish the Czech Dutch Chamber of Commerce (CDCC, 2015) in The Hague. Originally, we planned to contribute even financially but the project was not approved by the headquarters of our Ministry. So, we have supported the Chamber “only” by our contacts, recommendations, organization capacities, and space – providing the residence of Ambassador for the founding and some following receptions.

The goal of the CDCC is to support business development and growth of Czech companies and entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Dutch entities in the Czech Republic.  Its main services include hosting of regular business and social meetings and specialized seminars, support in the search for new business partners, information and intermediary services. The CDCC was founded with the support of the Embassy as a non-profit organization in The Hague in June 2014. Every start is usually difficult, so we should keep ourselves humble. The same applies to the CDCC. The number of members is growing, frequency and quality of events too. As the main benefit for the Embassy, I see the mutual exchange of useful contacts, enlargement of our networking capacities and the help with organizing some events – e.g. the last time it was during the third annual Embassy Festival. The Czech Republic stand was jointly presented by the Embassy, the CDCC, the Czech Centre and the Czech Tourism Agency. And before it was even more important and challenging (because on very short notice) - on the 29th June 2015, we have jointly organized the Czech Dutch Business Forum (together with the Chamber of Commerce - Kamer van Koophandel, KvK) in Rotterdam on the occasion of a visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Mr. Lubomír Zaorálek in the Netherlands who was accompanied by a business delegation of the Czech Chamber of Commerce (www.komora.cz). Some outputs can be found on Trade mission (2015).

And the assessment of our cooperation by the CDCC? I have some reasons to believe that it is also good but it is up to them to say.

Finally, as suggested by Lee (2004) or Saner, R., Lichia Yiu, & Mikael Sondergaard (2000), the cooperation of public and private actors, the exchange of information or even people (“diplomats´ revolving door”) is in the framework of commercial diplomacy quite natural, usually suitable and sometimes even necessary.  Three main challenges of cooperation with Czech Chamber of Commerce – 1) limited capacities on both sides; 2) risk of image´s damage in case of any serious problems or misbehaviour; 3) possibility of accusations of biased cooperation or in eventual case of financial loss – bankruptcy. Some other challenges of public-private partnerships can be found in Hodge, G. A., & Greve, C. (2005).

Conclusions and Recommendations

This blog tries to document both in theory and in practice the relation of business diplomacy, multilateral (inter-governmental) / state diplomacy, and commercial diplomacy towards the global issues and legitimacy challenges. I suggest that this relation can be as follows - business diplomacy tries to ensure the growing profit using all the opportunities, legal and sometimes even illegal; multilateral or state diplomacy attempts to create the legal framework (EU) and “soft” principles and recommendations (OECD) for them; and commercial diplomacy should try to transform the challenges into the opportunities and to support the companies in the given frameworks.

The nature and scope of the commercial diplomat activities have been evolving together with the development of new democracies, new technologies, globalized trade and investments, and new tasks over the last 25 years. To be successful that means to solve the above mentioned challenges and many others, a commercial diplomat needs extensive managerial and commercial experience, as well as interpersonal and analytical skills and contacts. The chosen cases describe different activities and the knowledge which is necessary for this. The used approach is also in accordance with the typical work of the commercial diplomat, who usually assists with many different issues, but commonly not very in-depth. For his success, the involvement of his ambassador is crucial too (Abbink, 2014).

I can also confirm most of developments noted by Ruël (2013) from my experience. Commercial diplomacy plays a more central role in diplomatic policy and practice that could be documented by the increasing activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in this field – namely the number of prepared trade missions, economic publications, increasing number of commercial diplomats outside the EU or pushing the economic activities to other (territorial) departments and levels (ministerial and ambassadorial) of the Ministry. Companies are charged for services by the CzechTrade, so services are also expected to have higher standards. Asia, as a region of interest for our countries, is becoming more important than before, especially the relations with China have the highest priority. The more activities or economic projects is to be done with fewer or the same staff because of lower budgets. The question has arisen more and more about how commercial diplomacy adds value, and its activities have to prove over and over again how the information that is offered is more valuable than what you can find through other sources. So its quality, impacts and feedbacks are more and more measured and evaluated. Smaller budgets are a driver for innovation, efficiency and improved productivity, and the budgets are reallocated based mainly on the project, strategic and political decisions.

So, hopefully, we can conclude this blog by making the allegation similar to Sedláček (2011) that it is not so important if it is the business, commercial, economic or trade diplomacy or challenge but “that more ethics is better for the economy.”

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