At least once every two years Ambassadors from selected countries get together for the Envoys conference. Almost always economic diplomacy is top of the agenda. From Prime Minister down they are reminded modern diplomacy is about promoting country's economic interests.
At each conference the script is the same. So is the outcome. Not because the intent is not there but because the approach is flawed. Classic case of "doing same thing over and over again and expecting different results"!
In keeping with their calling, Their Excellencies listen to all the exhortations diplomatically. It is only when they meet over whatever they meet over after a hard day's work that they open up amongst themselves.
"How do you promote exports when you have so little to export? How do you attract FDI when your own people are not investing? How do you sell tourism when you have this image problem? How do you induce transfer of technology when your intellectual property rights regime is weak?" is the refrain.
They of course have a point, and we won't sully the waters by asking "but what, Excellency, do you do for a living?" Let's try to be a bit more constructive and explore ways to narrow the gap between diplomatic grandeur and commercial mundanity.
There are three stumbling blocks: style, skills and support systems. There is also the overarching issue of who is the ultimate 'user' of their services: is government the client or the exporter (or an FDI or tourism partner)?
Diplomacy is steeped in tradition. It is so much about bows and curtsies. It is about the art of conversation, taking in its swoop history and culture and classics, over Christofled and Baccarated dinner tables. It is about cultivating top functionaries of the host government, media czars, big business, glitterati of one kind or another.
Style comes in the way of service to exporters from home. What Ambassador would like to seat a buyer of carpets next to a Senator, even the Professor from Sorbonne? Have a look at the guest lists of all our Ambassadors and we would be prepared to lose a Duke-sized wager that you won't find a single buyer of Pakistani goods there.
Do they have the requisite skills? Our diplomats are trained differently. Their training does include a dose of Pakistan's economy, its challenges and opportunities, but little on the specificity of their role vis-a-vis Pakistan's economic interests. To them economic diplomacy is about bilateral and multilateral interactions with international civil servants or fellow diplomats.
Such interactions seldom achieve concrete results for Pakistan's economic interests. If anything, Embassies often recommend to the Government to review its stance: rigorous application of intellectual property rights, for instance; quite unmindful of the success (led by NGOs) in significantly diluting patent rights for manufacture of certain drugs in developing countries.
The default response to the missing skills is to provide Ambassadors with 'professional help', in the form of Commercial Counselors. They are the ones who come equipped with knowledge of products and exporters, demand and supply, B2B partnerships, marketing techniques.....
Do they? There is credible research to show there is a 6-10% increase in bilateral exports for each additional trade office (Naray, 2008). In our case commercial representation abroad has gone up from 21 to 56 offices over the last 15 years - and our share of global exports has dropped from 0.16% to 0.12%!
There are good reasons why our trade offices have failed to make a difference. By and large, they are chosen on a competitive basis - except the basis of competition is unsound. The exam (conducted through LUMS) and interviews are designed to reward the very same generalists who top the civil service exams.
Most of the selectees are as clueless about exporters and their needs and products as their colleagues in the diplomatic wing. They just can't have a 'professional' conversation with local buyers. They don't speak the language of local buyers - in most cases quite literally. People selecting them are happily ignorant of the indispensability of local languages for trade officers.
Even if they were well-trained, and spoke the language, they have an impossible task: there is no way you can become sufficiently well versed in the large range of products you are expected to foster. In the rare instances where you pick up the warp and weft of your trade it is time to head back home by the time you do so!
We have not even been able to determine where to locate our trade offices. Common sense tells us business potential is more important than current flows in choosing the location. Our experience has largely been in defiance of common sense.
Little wonder, after all these years we have yet to carry out an independent evaluation of the efficacy of our trade offices.
Then there is the organizational aspect: is it the responsibility of Foreign Office or the relevant Ministry? Is FO only the face to launch the thousand initiatives of Islamabad?
Different countries have approached it differently, with the developed world separating trade promotion from trade policy. Japan (JETRO), Korea (KOTRA), Italy (ICE) have specialized promotional agencies with a strong presence abroad. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Scandinavia, have merged the Foreign Affairs and International trade ministries. US and China have their commercial services, housed in the embassy but quite independent. In most countries career advancement of FO officers depends on their 'commercial experience'.
The recent Envoys conference needn't have been the philosopher's stone, seeking to transform base metal into gold. What we need is fresh approaches to make the FO more relevant to economic diplomacy. In Trade, for instance, why not make promotion a part of FO responsibility, while retaining policy with Commerce?
If that is something Commerce will fight to death over, why not start deputing FO officers to relevant Ministries/Departments to get them the required exposure and experience?
Commerce now says it will appoint expat Pakistanis as Trade Officers. This has been tried before and didn't work. If business is the client we should encourage Trade Associations to open their offices abroad, with the Embassy playing a co-ordination and back-stopping role. Who would understand the needs of their members better?
Economic diplomacy - civil servants, diplomats, or expats - is not for the dilettantes, no matter how gifted.
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