QIZ and all that…
When I was first introduced to the concept of QIZ… I was literally floored. It was one of the most original and thought provoking model of incentivizing peace and interaction between entities that are naturally estranged.
So what is QIZ…? It is short form of Qualifying Industrial Zone. Quoting from the horse's mouth…
Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ) are designated geographic areas, within Egypt (and Jordan), that enjoy a duty free status with the United States. Companies located within such zones are granted duty free access to the US markets, provided that they satisfy the agreed upon Israeli component, as per the pre-defined rules of origin.
So basically what it does… is that it incentivizes a joint Egypt-Israel or joint Jordan-Israel production (that is, the final production would happen in Egypt but with a pre-decided amount of Israeli component)… thus leading to more than normal economic exchange between these estranged nations. And then this joint production gets preferential treatment in the US markets. Marvelous piece of policy… and salute to the team that came up with the idea.
The beauty about the policy is that it is downright practical… it doesn’t have any other-worldly notions about politics prevailing in the Middle East that Egypt and Israel can be best pals… after having fought 3 (or is it 4) wars and all that. It proposes an economic solution to the political problem… it assumes that economic relations forces the adversaries to temporarily bury the hatchet for mutual economic benefit. This in turn can help in the longer run… because a larger interaction opens a possibility of understanding each other better…. And then it could lead to some kind of reconciliation in the longer run.
So why do I write about it in my blog… wasn’t my blog supposed to be apolitical and downright boring… well it was… but then I write about this because of a reason.
Yesterday I was interacting with a friend of mine who works for a NGO called Pratham… which works for education of street kids… I have been associated on and off with the NGO. The NGO lauched an ambitious program an all-India teaching program… which was a great success… and now it plans to replicate its success in Pakistan. He went to Pakistan to do some field study and realized that the aspiration levels and the thought pattern of an average Pakistani is more or less similar. I always believed that… I am a firm believer that the Pakistan has all the ingredient of becoming a successful nation… but the Indian pre-occupation of their ruling elite… has actually distorted both their external and internal policies.
So how do you bring about reconciliation between the two countries… well do the same thing… be downright BLOODY practical… realize that we are not friends and are not going to become one in the near or not-so-near future… but that we can bury the hatchet if something incentivizes that… and then try to find what can actually help in incentivizing the same.
And what can do the trick is mutual economic benefit… look around… Egypt and Israel are trading… China and Japan are trading… the World's most fruitful and revolutionary economic partnership is between China and US… the nations that fought bitterly over Vietnam and Korea. Closer home… India and China are trading… even India and Myanmar are trying to do the same. So examples are aplenty.
Let us make a Free-trade zone… activate SAFTA or SAPTA (whatever serves the purpose) invest in each other's country… like India can invest in Information Technology… I am told that Pakistani youth is equally good at computer skills and English… let us create competition for ourselves that would keep us evolving… similarly India can import food grains from Pakistan… thus opening more and more land for cash crops (like Jatropha… incidentally Jatropha farming in India is under intense criticism due to food shortages)…the benefits are mutual. And once these benefits are established, we will be forced to bury the hatchet (if not become friends)… I think, as a thumb rule, India-Pakistan trade should be at least half of India-China trade, owing to historical linkages, societal linkages.
This brings me to a more important issue… that is of Kashmir. Well let us be downrightly practical… if we create massive opportunities for Kashmiri youth in the economic miracle of India… they would be incentivized to remain a part of India… the economic incentive should be more organically linked to mainland India than tourism… lets say if we have 100s of Engineering colleges in Kashmir and a large number of Kashmiri youth working in software firms in Hyderabad and Bangalore… to the tune that every family has one of its earning member working in Indian silicon valley… well then who would like to rock the boat….
I know things are not as simple as I depict… but these are the broad contours that I am arguing my case in…. this is the template… we can work on it to refine it.
But how it is related to the travels of a pondering vagabond… simply because I saw it in action in Egypt… that set me thinking… if we can apply the same template in India… as I have always said different countries are doing different things and are doing similar things differently to be happier societies… and some of the learning from these countries can definitely be applied in the case of India.
Co-option as a policy is one of the most effective way of sorting out differences…. Sadly one of the biggest proponents of the same policy, US- that has done wonders in case of China, Vietnam and Latin America, and in recent times in North Korea and Libya… is not following the policy of co-option in Iran and Sudan… perhaps it should… though I am extremely under-equipped to comment on that
So what is QIZ…? It is short form of Qualifying Industrial Zone. Quoting from the horse's mouth…
Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ) are designated geographic areas, within Egypt (and Jordan), that enjoy a duty free status with the United States. Companies located within such zones are granted duty free access to the US markets, provided that they satisfy the agreed upon Israeli component, as per the pre-defined rules of origin.
So basically what it does… is that it incentivizes a joint Egypt-Israel or joint Jordan-Israel production (that is, the final production would happen in Egypt but with a pre-decided amount of Israeli component)… thus leading to more than normal economic exchange between these estranged nations. And then this joint production gets preferential treatment in the US markets. Marvelous piece of policy… and salute to the team that came up with the idea.
The beauty about the policy is that it is downright practical… it doesn’t have any other-worldly notions about politics prevailing in the Middle East that Egypt and Israel can be best pals… after having fought 3 (or is it 4) wars and all that. It proposes an economic solution to the political problem… it assumes that economic relations forces the adversaries to temporarily bury the hatchet for mutual economic benefit. This in turn can help in the longer run… because a larger interaction opens a possibility of understanding each other better…. And then it could lead to some kind of reconciliation in the longer run.
So why do I write about it in my blog… wasn’t my blog supposed to be apolitical and downright boring… well it was… but then I write about this because of a reason.
Yesterday I was interacting with a friend of mine who works for a NGO called Pratham… which works for education of street kids… I have been associated on and off with the NGO. The NGO lauched an ambitious program an all-India teaching program… which was a great success… and now it plans to replicate its success in Pakistan. He went to Pakistan to do some field study and realized that the aspiration levels and the thought pattern of an average Pakistani is more or less similar. I always believed that… I am a firm believer that the Pakistan has all the ingredient of becoming a successful nation… but the Indian pre-occupation of their ruling elite… has actually distorted both their external and internal policies.
So how do you bring about reconciliation between the two countries… well do the same thing… be downright BLOODY practical… realize that we are not friends and are not going to become one in the near or not-so-near future… but that we can bury the hatchet if something incentivizes that… and then try to find what can actually help in incentivizing the same.
And what can do the trick is mutual economic benefit… look around… Egypt and Israel are trading… China and Japan are trading… the World's most fruitful and revolutionary economic partnership is between China and US… the nations that fought bitterly over Vietnam and Korea. Closer home… India and China are trading… even India and Myanmar are trying to do the same. So examples are aplenty.
Let us make a Free-trade zone… activate SAFTA or SAPTA (whatever serves the purpose) invest in each other's country… like India can invest in Information Technology… I am told that Pakistani youth is equally good at computer skills and English… let us create competition for ourselves that would keep us evolving… similarly India can import food grains from Pakistan… thus opening more and more land for cash crops (like Jatropha… incidentally Jatropha farming in India is under intense criticism due to food shortages)…the benefits are mutual. And once these benefits are established, we will be forced to bury the hatchet (if not become friends)… I think, as a thumb rule, India-Pakistan trade should be at least half of India-China trade, owing to historical linkages, societal linkages.
This brings me to a more important issue… that is of Kashmir. Well let us be downrightly practical… if we create massive opportunities for Kashmiri youth in the economic miracle of India… they would be incentivized to remain a part of India… the economic incentive should be more organically linked to mainland India than tourism… lets say if we have 100s of Engineering colleges in Kashmir and a large number of Kashmiri youth working in software firms in Hyderabad and Bangalore… to the tune that every family has one of its earning member working in Indian silicon valley… well then who would like to rock the boat….
I know things are not as simple as I depict… but these are the broad contours that I am arguing my case in…. this is the template… we can work on it to refine it.
But how it is related to the travels of a pondering vagabond… simply because I saw it in action in Egypt… that set me thinking… if we can apply the same template in India… as I have always said different countries are doing different things and are doing similar things differently to be happier societies… and some of the learning from these countries can definitely be applied in the case of India.
Co-option as a policy is one of the most effective way of sorting out differences…. Sadly one of the biggest proponents of the same policy, US- that has done wonders in case of China, Vietnam and Latin America, and in recent times in North Korea and Libya… is not following the policy of co-option in Iran and Sudan… perhaps it should… though I am extremely under-equipped to comment on that
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