‘We Expect Increased Per Capita Consumption of Plastics in South Asia’

Jim Becker is the President and Managing Director of Chevron Phillips Chemicals Asia Pte Ltd and Chevron Phillips Singapore Chemicals Private Limited.Chevron Phillips Chemical is one of the world’s top producers of olefins and polyolefins and a leading supplier of aromatics, alpha olefins, styrenics, specialty chemicals, piping, and proprietary plastics. The company with its joint venture partners, operates 42 manufacturing and research centres. Chevron Phillips is based in The Woodlands, Texas (north of Houston) and employs over 4,700 employees worldwide. The company, with its joint venture partners, currently has 39 production facilities located in the United States, Colombia, Singapore, China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Belgium. Agriculture, automobiles, appliances, adhesives and sealants, electronics, medical, household goods, industrial, and textile are some of the areas that are served by the company among numerous others. Singapore is the regional headquarters for its operations in the Asia-Pacific region. Becker was recently in Kathmandu during a day-long seminar organised by the Nepal Plastic Association. In an interview with New Business Age, Becker shared his idea on the Nepali market for his company among various other issues. Excerpts:

What brings you to Nepal this time?

We were invited for the Nepal Plastic Association event here. Nepal is an important market for the Chevron Philips Chemical. This is my first trip to Nepal and I was very pleased to come here and meet some of our customers and interact with the Nepal Plastic Association.


You are one of the leading exporters of polymers to Nepal. What led you to achieve this position?

We started about 20 years ago with fairly low volume which at that time was around 300 tonnes. We worked hard and closely with an agent here in Nepal and now we sell almost 8,000 tonnes in this country. We see it growing further in the future.

What are the products that you are currently exporting to Nepal?

We primarily sell high density polyethylene in Nepal. The Marlex Resin, which is the brand name of our product, is well known across Asia. It is the best quality resin in Asia and is used for many different applications. However, in Nepal, it is mainly used to produce pipe - primarily for water transport, and film for plastic shopping bags When it comes to use of plastic products, environmental issues come into consideration. As a producer of polymers, what is your take on it?

I am not an expert on technology of sustainability but one of the biggest areas as far as I am concerned is energy consumption. That is one of the major benefits of using plastics. Without plastics, the world would be consuming much more energy because plastics, for example, are much lighter so they make automobiles lighter, packaging lighter, and also make bottles lighter among other things. So, consequently the energy it takes to transport all of these materials is reduced. If your car was heavier it would be much less efficient and would use more energy. The fact that you can make all these things lighter using plastics, is a big benefit. In addition to that, manufacturing polyethylene is more energy efficient in most cases compared with alternatives. If you reduce energy consumption, you reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve energy and reduce emissions of all sorts which are good for the environment.

That, to me, is one of the major impacts that plastics have, on in a positive way, on the environment. Another very important benefit is in the food packaging area where you prevent spoilage of food which means more food for the consumer as well as for everyone else. As an industry, we need to work closely with people like those in Nepal Plastics Association to help educate people on the benefits of plastics. It is not something well understood by a lot of people. Therefore, we need to do a good job educating people to make sure they understand the benefits of plastics.

How do you see the market in South Asia?

The South Asian region has got a strong future that is why it is an important market to us. If you look at the emerging economies in South Asia, people from the lower income level are moving up to the middle income level. This means they are going to consume many more things including more plastics. When you combine that with strong population growth, we think the future of polyethylene and polypropylene looks pretty strong in South Asia. We expect the per capita consumption of plastics in South Asia to increase over the next decades.

Industrialisation is rather slow in Nepal. How do you see the future in this context and what are your expectations?

As I mentioned, we see Nepal as an area of growth for polyethylene. I don’t really know a lot about the specific policies that are being adopted in Nepal to help encourage growth. But we think that we will see the same kind of driving forces that will tend to increase consumption in Nepal similar to what we see in India, China and elsewhere in Asia. Nepal is an important market for us and we expect to be here for a long time.

What is the level of competition you face in Nepal?

The Marlex brand is very strong and we are very confident about our products and the brand itself. There is competition in Nepal of course but we will keep doing what we have been doing so far. Our basic business model is to establish close relationships with customers and work with them to develop this market. We have a very talented agent here in Nepal who helps us do this and so we plan to keep doing what we have been doing – working with the customers to help this market grow.

Visiting Business People

‘We can Help Nepali Tea Earn Credibility in Europe’

Dheeraj Rathi is the Director of South Asia at BM TRADA RKCA Certification Pvt Ltd. He has been working for the company since July 2011 and looks after the South Asia operation. BM TRADA is one of the leaders in certifications with a history of more than 75 years in the certification industry across the globe. It has expertise in construction, oil and gas, timber research, sustainable supply chains, food industry and systems design. The company has served about 15,000 organisations in more than 80 countries in systems certifications and management systems design. Rathi heads a team of 18 members and 45 associate auditors and channel partners to serve over a 1,000 clients. He was recently in Nepal to award Chilime Hydropower Company Limited with Quality Management System (QMS) and Environment Management System (EMS) awards. In an Interview with New Business Age, he shared his ideas on certification trends and plans of BM TRADA operations in Nepal. Excerpts:

What brings you to Nepal this time?

We have certified Chilime Hydropower Company and I wanted personally to come and be a part of something which I feel is a good cause for the society. In the entire world, this is the first hydropower plant which BM TRADA has certified. Certification for hydropower is something which you can get if you are either in the US or in South Asia. That is something which is very unique.

Do you think the certification procedure can be customised to suit the local environment? Are there any such practices?

Customisation is not there because you are actually certifying against the given standards. There are certain standards which are called guidelines. You actually design the process, set a benchmark and tell companies whether they are moving towards that set benchmark. The guidelines report tells us where we are going right or wrong. It does not certify anything. There are certain standards such as Quality Management System, Occupational Health and Safety, Environmental Management System and Food Safety Management System. There are certain clauses which are to be followed. We ensure that the application of those clauses is done in totality. We customise to the extent of understanding the local work culture, however, we don’t customise the standards which are internationally recognised. But at the same time, there are certain companies which are much larger and they should look at customising the quality standards for their needs and getting certified by the third party. We are not here just like any other organisations to sell standards; we want quality and recognition to improve at the international level. These customisations are only helpful for bigger companies and government organisations, for example, banks with 500 branches. Their need is not fulfilled by just one standard only. As an accreditation body, we can work with them to create their own standards, and recognise these on international standards.

In Nepal, ISO certifications are often mistaken to be certificates awarded for the product quality even though they have been awarded for the management and systems implemented. Is BM TRADA planning to carry out educational campaigns for raising awareness?

I have been talking to local partners here on this matter. We need to carry out awareness campaigns not just about quality standards. There are fundamentally four different types of standards which we look at: process standard that certifies the process, product standard that certifies the product, people standard that certifies people and management standard that certifies overall management. Especially, ISO 9001:2008 has not been certifying a product but the system that is constantly there to give better quality products. When the system is good, the product quality will obviously be good. There are also certain product certifications that we do. We are planning to work on many training programmes which we will be very happy to share. There are broadly three areas in which we want to provide trainings. One is RMS implementation training on standards, second is RMS implementation training on business system and the third is awareness and skill improvement training on human skills. There are various ISO standards for every skill such as quality skills, marketing skills, personality skills, and communication skills etc which are very important for an organisation to have. We want to conduct trainings on these different areas and around international standards mostly working in tandem with various organisations.

You mentioned about person certification. How are people certified?

If there is a prospect of personal decision-making in the quality of product, how will you know if the person is competent enough to make that decision? Therefore, we make the basic element of the decision-making. BM TRADA is one of the largest personal certification bodies in the UK for timber quality grading. We design a scheme where a person is being taught how to grade a timber based on various specification of the wood by looking at the wood. When he gives the test result this person’s result is then compared to actual tests and if variation is found to be within amicable number, we issue certification. That certificate is considered in various organisations as certificate of quality. In health care, for example, geriatric nurses can work as qualified nurses anywhere in the world. Their earning can be increased significantly just by a small training. The government should also give some sort of recognition to them. On our part, we can design a scheme to certify these people so that they can get much better accessibility and opportunity. In personal certification, you have to identify that one skill which you want to certify and look at the competency that the person has and certify it.

You said that BM TRADA is planning to be the largest certification body in Nepal. How do you plan to achieve it?

There are three things that we believe in. Firstly, our focus on integrated management system that is based on quality, healthcare, safety and environment. We have the largest scope, localised partner and the local face of BM TRADA here. Secondly, we will get into food industry such as hotels, restaurants, bakeries, food processing, tea and others. We can help Nepali tea to earn credibility in the European market. A certification logo speaks for itself. Thirdly, we want to focus on forestry supply chain because Nepal would again have a lot of products coming from the forests. There is a lot of scope for improvement in that part of supply chain. You have timber, plywood, paper, honey, perfume and much more. All these things can be certified to get recognition in the global market. We need to train more people in Nepal for this and create employment opportunities here in this country.

What are the prospects you see in other sectors like tourism and hydropower?

Tourism and power are two sectors we would like to work very closely with. Similarly, trading is another such area. We would like to support a lot of trading organisations who plan to grow big and help their distribution system to grow by certifying their distribution system. A consumer would know that the company with certification will be able to provide good quality products.

What are the challenges you face here while marketing your brand name as well as the quality certifications?

The biggest challenge for me is to make people aware that they should meet standards. Once there is awareness, the differentiation between a good and a bad company needs to be explored. Today, international standards are issued by 60 companies but one may want to know which countries these companies operate in and the different certificates they issue. It also matters if these companies have certified big names in the countries they have operated in. Ultimately, it is all about a brand name which people can trust. My challenges are firstly, to make people aware that they need standards and secondly, to differentiate between good and bad. I hope that like-minded people will come together and create an environment to do something substantial here.

What are the plans of BM TRADA for Nepal?

We are actually thinking very seriously about online training so that we can reach remote places as well as train more people. We are planning to invest heavily in the entire South Asian market. We plan to invest on a portal and work on it so that we can increase the quality of manpower in the region.

Visiting Business People

‘It’s High Time for Nepal to have More Investors’

Professor Dr Fatma Gunseli Malko is the Honorary Consul General of Nepal in Istanbul, Turkey.  She hails from Istanbul, Turkey and has completed PhD in Adult Education from Institute of Social Sciences from Marmara University. She was recently in Nepal with a delegation of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ICOC) which is the first formal business delegation from Turkey to Nepal. The Turkish delegation came upon an invitation of Nepal Investment Board (NIB) and with special efforts of Professor Malkoç. Professor Malkoç has worked as a Full Professor in Department of Public Relations, Faculty of Communications in Marmara University, Istanbul. Her teaching faculty ranges from Adult Educations, Adult Psychology to Public Relations and Interpersonal/Institutional Communications among numerous others. In an Interview with New Business Age, Professor Malkoç talked about the potentials of trade and relationship between Turkey and Nepal. Excerpts:

What brings you to Nepal this time?

This time, we were in Nepal with the important delegation of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ICOC). I personally believe it is high time to introduce the business community of Turkey to Nepal to bolster ties in trade and bilateral relations. Also, it’s high time for Nepal to have more investors to have rapid development. The construction and power sectors of Turkey are one of the greatest in the world and if Nepal can tap the opportunity, both the countries can have mutual benefit.

Would you share with us about your meetings?

All of our meetings were fruitful mainly due to the organization and efforts of Radhesh Pant, the CEO of Nepal Investment Board (NIB). We met the Prime Minister and we felt honored with his warm welcome and response. The Prime Minister said that Nepal wants more foreign investment and assured that any type of business would be welcomed from Turkey and support would also be given to Turkish investors. His assurance made the visiting Turkish delegation very happy. We also had a chance to meet the Minister of Industry.

What are your areas of interest to invest in Nepal?

In our talk with Pant, he stressed on sectors like hydropower, infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, mining and also IT in a priority list. These sectors also have good potentials in Turkey. And, in my view, power and infrastructure should be mainly prioritized to invest in Nepal. The frequent electricity cut-off is a nightmare for any of the above mentioned industries. It decreases the efficiency of the factories, and also degrades the quality of life of people. Without infrastructure, power cannot go further at the required pace and better economy leads to the betterment of every life.

What were the decisions made through these meetings?

We further consulted with C P Khetan, the Consular of Turkey in Nepal and Kishore Maharjan, the CEO of Civil Bank. We further learnt about the banking system in Nepal. Our delegation was also much impressed with the establishment of NIB. We have had the idea that the board will be very beneficial in coming days and it’s a revolutionary one. In the 1960s, Turkey also faced a weak economy and foreign investment led us to the road of prosperity and we hope the same thing will be applicable to Nepal. In our talks with FNCCI, they also prioritized areas of investment in power, tourism and infrastructure. With CNI, we had sector-wise discussion. During the CNI meet, we also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and we feel it was one of the concrete developments. We also decided that the Nepali delegation should visit Turkey in the near future, maybe in January 2013. It is also agreed that there should be an exhibition of Turkish products by ICOC in Kathmandu after six months along with a group of Turkish investors. We also met with the Nepal-Turkey Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NTCCI) which visits Turkey every year. This is a very good development which can lead the way for investors by getting to know the country better. An MOU was signed with NTCCI too. I see a bright future of Nepal if there is political stability and strong government.

What could be the area of interest for Turkey’s business community in Nepal?

We are thinking in the same direction as NIB. We know each other’s ideas and have mutual trust. From my side, I will try my best to get investment in infrastructure and construction. Whatever NIB’s CEO Pant suggested was very complementary to the potential of Turkey. We are ahead in infrastructure and construction. So, to make tunnels and roads, Turkey has very good investors. We have European quality in moderate Asian prices which will be beneficial for Nepal. Turkey has a lot of experience in hydropower as we have many rivers in Turkey. There are many projects running with latest technologies. If both the hydropower and infrastructure sectors are developed in Nepal, it will be beneficial for other top priority sectors as well.

We have been enjoying duty free access to US and other few countries. What will be your role to facilitate similarly easier entry for Nepali carpets in Turkey?

Even though Turkey is one of the best countries for producing quality handmade carpets, Nepali carpets have a big market in Turkey for their design and color. Though there is no economic agreement between Nepal and Turkey so far, I’m trying my best for this.

What else are the probable areas of cooperation between Turkey and Nepal?

Last year, our Minister of Foreign Affairs visited Nepal and they wanted to start Turkish Airlines service to Nepal via India. But, I think direct flights from Turkey to Nepal will be much more beneficial for both business relations and tourism. So, we have been discussing that there should be a direct flight from Istanbul to Kathmandu. When ICOC and I will be presenting our reports in Turkey, we will definitely highlight this point. Turkey is the gateway to Europe. Qatar Airways is having 4-5 flights a day so I think there is a big demand. It is nice to know that this news has already found space in Turkish newspaper that Nepali business community wants direct flight from Turkey to Nepal. Also, it would a good idea to open an embassy soon to jointly promote economic cooperation between the two countries.

Being in an influential position, how are you planning to publicize Nepal in Turkey?

I first came to Nepal in 1995-96 as a visiting professor to Kathmandu University. I really love this country and have known Nepal for more than 15 years. We have organized two Nepal Weeks in Turkey and they were big events. All the dancers, musicians and even the royal astrologer Mangal Raj Joshi attended the event. Since I’m a professor, I like to give lectures and I have been giving lectures about Nepal at many places such as Universities, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs etc. Now the people in Turkey recognize Nepal when they think about me. I write articles about Nepal in some newspapers and magazines whenever possible. I am interviewed by media people many times. About a year ago, a TV program was made in my house saying “if you can’t go to Nepal we bring Nepal to your House!” since my house is decorated like a small Nepal. I’m proud of representing Nepal as I have created mini Nepal in my house.

What other things are happening and could be done to facilitate the tourism ties between the two countries?

I have told Nepal Tourism Board many times that they should start investing in new markets. It is high time to search for new markets besides the regular ones like some European countries and the US. The efforts of the Ministry of Tourism alone are not enough to promote tourism. It is also the responsibility of the business community and travel agencies in Nepal. They should have good communication with the representatives of Nepal abroad and give necessary support to them. Honorary consulates are very important in this respect. By uniting our strengths, we can do much more to facilitate the tourism ties between Nepal and other countries.

Since we don’t have enough aircraft with the national carrier, what could be the best way to promote Nepal in Turkey?

Turkish Airlines have a big fleet of aircraft. If Nepal needs more aircraft, there are airline companies in Turkey who can come and invest here. There can be joint ventures as well. We also have private companies with inexpensive airfares and strong market share. Flights from Turkey to Nepal are very expensive at the moment and cost about 800 Euros. This should be made much cheaper to attract more tourists to Nepal.

What is the focal point of connecting Nepal and Turkey?

Friendly Nepali people and their culture are similar to us. We have similar cultures and family ties are very close like in Nepal. We are also blessed with nature providing variety of outdoor activities just like they are in Nepal. Turkey also has a great and ancient civilization like Nepal.

What are the products that are imported in Nepal from Turkey?

There is a government organization in Turkey and they are promoting trade with foreign countries. They have formed a representation in Nepal and they often visit Turkey. The organization mainly deals in suits, shoes, men’s wear, fertilizers, generators, machine-made carpets, electronic items and food items like noodles, biscuits, candies, oil etc with good quality. I recommend Nepal should buy olive oil and wine from Turkey.