This month’s issue focuses on the huge and buoyant market of Asia. Reports from Singapore, Bangkok, Malaysia and China speak volumes for the level of activity and the advanced nature of the tunnelling under way in this part of the world, underlined by items in World News.
Our focus on Asia corresponds with this month’s fourth T&T International Chinese Tunnelling Symposium, held in Beijing with the support of the Ministry of Railways and the Chinese Tunnelling Society.
As China’s economy forges ahead and the country is forecast to have the world’s largest GDP by 2015, news of investment in the underground continues to be reported in the pages of this journal.
To encourage social and economic development, investment already under way or planned, especially in road and rail tunnels, will see a projected $17bn spent on metro and light gauge railways in 15 cities. This represents an additional 350km of metro lines expected to be built early in the next millennium.
If the answer to China’s urbanisation is mass transit rail transport, this will ensure the country’s continuing importance as a market for tunnelling expertise. It also dictates that overseas companies learn to do business ‘the Chinese way’.
If there is one thing we have learned over the years of organising our Chinese Tunnelling Symposium it is the value that the Chines place on personal contact in the building of working relationships. Deals are often seen to be struck with individuals rather than organisations and, while sometimes difficult to forge, such business relationships can be enduring.
At a time when industry in the West appears to believe that a seamless corporate facade is something to strive for – often at the cost of individual relationships – we can all find something refreshing in the alternative approach to business practised by our Chinese colleagues.
