Can you hear me now? Good.

I'm Aiko Doden, senior news commentator for NHK, Japan Broadcasting

Corporation, and I will be hosting today's session.

Thank you very much for coming to our session.

The topic of this session is Attracting the Best and Brightest.

As Asia becomes the center of growth for the global economy, we will first

examine how two major players, China and India, are trying to secure the

best talents.

And then look into wider impacts these efforts may have.

NHK will record this session for Asian Voices, a debate program on key global

issues. This will be broadcast to 120 countries

worldwide via NHK World. It will be shown six times, with the

first broadcast on September 25th from 02:10 UTC.

So please do join in.

The program can also be seen at that time on NHK World TV website or via the

NHK World iPhone application.

I did a bit of public relations for iPhone here.

Before we begin, may I remind you to turn off your mobile phones.

You are free to take photographs, but please make sure that the flashing

setting is off.

The session is recorded, as you can see there are cameras.

So please do stay in you seat and I will have to do my best to make this

discussion as engaging as possible so that you will choose to stay in your

seat.

I look forward to your contribution in making this discussion a meaningful

one.

We are almost ready to start the recording.

...

Let me first introduce the panelists to you.

We have Dr. Mari Elka Pangestu,

the Minister of Trade for Indonesia. She is an internationally renowned

economist and former executive director of Indonesia's Center for Strategic

and International Studies. She joined the Yudhoyono cabinet in the

year 2004 and is now in her second term.

Next is Dr. Liu Jiren, who is chairman and CEO of the Neusoft Corporation,

China's biggest IT solutions and services company.

He studied at universities in China and the U.S., took a special interest

in computing, and then returned to China where he established his company

in 1991.

It quickly became a top Chinese hi-tech firm.

Next is Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, who is the CEO of Infosys Technologies, one of

the world's leading software development and IT consulting firms.

It's head office is in Bangalore in India, and the company employs over

105,000 people in 23 countries.

Next to me is Professor Atsushi Seike, who is the president of Keio

University.

With a history of over 150 years, Keio was chosen as a key establishment in

the Japanese government efforts to attract more international students.

Professor Seika holds a PhD. in commerce and specialized in labor

economics.

So let me start with a China question.

In June this year, year 2010, China announced its first talent development

plan.

The plan suggests that China hopes to go beyond being seen as a world factory

with its vast supply of cheap labor. And I understand, one pillar of the

plan is to attract 2000 top-tier talents from abroad over the next 10

years. Dr. Liu, although it is just one pillar

in the bigger scheme, 2000 seems a bit modest for a country with a population

of 1.3 billion.

Yes.

A little bit confused. Two thousand, that means the top

scientists. It's not, if you look at the government

plan, they have very detailed framework.

It's not only for scientist, and also they like to have more talent working

in education sector, in manufacturing sector, even in social works.

So, it is a 10-year plan.

That plan tries to support the transformation from traditional Chinese

economic model to the new model. So if you look at the history in the

past 30 years, China's growth is driven by people.

So around 300 million people immigrate from rural areas to come to downtown,

to cities, to join manufacturing. Because of their contribution,

China makes a lot of things at very competitive price.

And also, that is a great, immigrate to changing what we call urbanization.

So like more and more people become citizen of cities.

So that makes China just like today. But if we look at those type of

business model, that is not sustainable.

So we consume a lot of natural resources.

So, energy we have a big problem.

Another big challenge about China is now, every year, we have six million

young people… from universities. What is their job in the future?

So the other problem is economic issues and also, we say the stability

of society, that is another challenge. So government plan is to buy the

institute, the policy, this is made by government, to changing the structure

of the people. I mean get more talent.

Of course, to attract more talent, we send to study abroad, they can go back

to give more and more opportunity like in to enjoy, you know, new, to share

some growth as a China economy. That is their idea.

So I think after 10 years, the government have launched, today is 9

percent of educated people as working force.

It's after 10 years, their target is 20 percent of educated people to be as

working force, I mean higher education from university.

They have 100 percent government officer have a degree of university.

They have most of, you know, few to more than a thousand research institute

who is driven by talents from global wide.

And also they work on more and more foreign expert to get a job, to have

a work in China, so that (…) If I could intervene there, the part of

the current plan is to attract outstanding talents, I should say,

but what is the field that China is particularly interested in achieving

talent and improving the strength?

Okay. I think is that, of course, to attract

the talent is first the, every people, they hardly have gotten opportunities.

But today's China, if you look at today, more and more Chinese are just

like myself. Twenty years, I study U.S.

I go back, but most of my classmates still working in the United States.

Because at that time, there is no opportunity.

But today, the institute plan, and I cannot say attract more talent to go

back. I can say China attract people, they go

back. Just like in India.

More Indian, we call, talent mortality. They're just like a tadpole,

they're moving determined by opportunity. That is why the government, I think

the purpose is simple, because, yeah. Would you or China be confident that

the top-tier talents from abroad, as you said, will choose to come to China?

People can say that China had different degrees of opening up to the

world. It tended to be varied from time to

time.

I don't think China now is looked at as an economic power and this country

is still a developing country, and so most of the people that come to China,

they see Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, they say that is developed country.

But if you drive 100 kilometer away, they say that is another world, like 20

years or 30 years before in China. But, that is opportunity.

That is why talent to like to say how long?

What is space for them to working here? I think the driving force in the

future is, one, multinational company. They attract more and more Chinese,

they study abroad. Send him to go back to working here.

That is one of big volume. Secondly, they come back, they want to

start up their own private company. So more and more high-tech company

is a startup by Chinese who have experience working in multinational

company or studying in the United States.

And Mr. Gopalakrishnan, you must be tired of people asking questions

whether it's China versus India. But if China succeeds in attracting the

best and brightest, will that show its effects to India?

No, I believe that there is space for both the countries to grow, which

is actually beneficial to everyone.

India will take its own trajectory of growth.

For example, right now, India has grown primarily on top of growth of services

sector. More than 50 percent of the economy

is service driven today. It's an interesting differentiation of

India in the sense that without getting into manufacturing, India has developed

a good services economy.

So India will look at attracting the best talent in two ways.

One, because of the growth of the economy, it attracts investment,

it attracts businesses, it attracts people to come back to the country.

And if the right environment is provided for entrepreneurship,

for businesses to flourish, for innovation to happen, definitely, you know,

the country will attract the right talent. The second way Indian,

especially Indian businesses would benefit is by recruiting people globally, either to

work in their operations around the world, or to work in India, you know,

to come back and work in India. We are having a larger and larger

number of non-Indians coming to India and working in India.

Now, if you look at our story itself, InfoSys itself, we have a significant

presence in China, in Eastern Europe, in South and Latin America,

in Philippines, etc. In China, we have 2600 people.

So we are actually benefitting from a growing educated population in China,

which wants to work for global companies.

So we're benefitting from that and we've grown quite heavily in China,

2600 people. So we see this as a way for us to take

advantage of the creativeness of India, take advantage of growth in different

parts of the world, and the ability to

attract the right talent. We have to make sure that we create

the right environment, both in India as well as enforcer for these people to do

well. And in the end, IT industry,

including yourself, your company, is reaching out for Chinese talents as you have said.

Yes. So, you know, we have had good

experience growing our center in China. As I said, we have 2600 people.

What we look for in attracting people is, one,

learnability. You know, ability to learn, because today's environment, you know changes

are constant. Change is happening faster and faster,

so you have to have employees who can learn very fast.

Second is problem solving skills. You know, an attitude to life,

when you see a problem, you don't feel threatened.

You don't feel challenges, you feel that it is interesting problem to

solve. It is an optimistic kind of attitude.

And the third, because they are in IT industry, a passion for technology,

passion for information technology and things like that.

And we can find such people anywhere in the world, and that's what we look

for when we look for employees.

I see. So do you think this so called

flattening of the global economy has a role there?

That with the spread of the internet, all countries can compete as he called,

and being a bright boy in that remote part of India will not be

a disadvantage. How do you think does a flat world

phenomenon or ideas have affected the corporate structures and human

resources struggle?

So in one sense, yes. If you have access to internet, if you

have access to education, you can participate in the globalization,

you can participate in the opportunities that are provided.

But there is still a large population.

So for example in India, about 300 million people are still illiterate.

So, the challenge is to make sure that they have access to internet, they have

access with education. They can participate in globalization,

etc. And how soon can you make that access

available to them. Because today, because of television,

they see what they're missing.

So they know what they want and how can you get that access to them as

quickly as possible. So we need to make sure that they have

access to education, they have access to capital, or you know,

entrepreneurship is possible.

And Dr. Pangestu, Indonesia because of its geopolitical location, must be

feeling China's impact or India's impact on Asian markets.

You have once spoken about the need for Indonesia to avoid direct

competition with China and find niche markets.

What would that be, do you think?

Yeah, our strategy in terms of having to compete with two large emerging

economies as our neighbors is to differentiate, do product

differentiation, find the niche that is in line with our talent.

So for instance, China as the factory of the world has a large pool of very

low cost labor producing mass-produced goods.

So we do not compete head on in that area.

We try to find a niche where we move up the more medium and higher end of any

of the manufacturing value added chain, and we try to promote the fact that we

do have low cost, not just low cost labor, but also low cost and skilled,

as well as creative labor force.