BELIZE STUDENTS GRADUATE IN TAIWAN - OUR ENTREPENEURS OF THE FUTURE WE HOPE?

BELIZE STUDENTS IN TAIWAN MAKE US PROUD!

THE QUESTION IS – HOW DO WE USE THEM ?

I don’t know where I saw it? I just ran through my weekend newspapers for the third time, but cannot find an article and photograph I recollect, on the graduation of a bunch of foreign students in the TAIWANESE SCHOLARSHIP program. Not having the statistic properly to hand, I’m going to guess and believe the number of Belizean TAIWANESE UNIVERSITY graduates to be 14 Belizeans?

That said, I wanted to write an opinion piece on this asset of the nation of Belize and how it should be used.

One has to reflect that these students have a unique perspective on Taiwan and mainland China . They speak rudimentary Mandarin, they are educated ( which may actually be a drawback ) and can provide our Nation of Belize with an expeditionary force into doing business with the new world powers of Asia . World population is projected to expand from 7 billion to 9 ½ billion in 15 years. Making for growing export markets for Belizeans.

The advantages are; that these Belizeans understand the language, understand the culture and can think and plan. It would be shameful if they came back home, to seek employment in Government jobs. What the nation of Belize needs, is for these 14 graduates to come back as entrepreneurs. They understand the web site of TAIWAN TRADE. They can at least get by in Mandarin. If Ambassador Shih of Taiwan can arrange for them to meet and tour industrial small plants, on the cottage industry level scale, they can bring back ideas to go into business, exporting stuff from Belize to Taiwan , China , Hong Kong and make themselves very rich in the process. Far more potential, for not only themselves, but also a wedge into getting our future foot in the door of ASIAN trade as a nation. They would not be limited to just exporting from Belize , but have all of Central America as product sources. Road and communications are excellent these days for Belizeans to do this.

We do not need them coming back as salaried employees. We need them to come back as ENTREPRENEURS, particularly with the ability to export things to Taiwan and mainland China . It is understanding the procedures necessary for business dealings and buyers from TAIWAN , buying processed food products, or manufacturing locally industrial stuff that may have markets in South America , that they can best serve themselves and our nation. We would like them to get rich in the process. We as a nation will also give them first choice of any Development Finance Loan funding should they need it, to set up a business.

Admittedly they are educated in career specialties. There is nothing wrong in that, though such education usually only makes intelligent people go the salaried job route, craving poverty level financial security. These young Belizean graduates of TAIWAN though, are our national treasure. We need them as exploratory business people, to find joint partnerships with Taiwanese and go independent in their career specialties if necessary, but going into EXPORT businesses from a Belizean perspective. They are our SEARCH and RECONAISSANCE troops in military terms. Their job is to bring Belize into the world economy, admittedly in a small scale niche field. Hopefully Ambassador Shih of Taiwan can arrange some suitable buyer orientated and packaging, processing tours within Taiwan to give them ideas BEFORE they come back to BELIZE . Economic trade is where they need to specialize from a Belizean/Central American viewpoint.