Establishment of Matsui Glocal LLC

Today (April 11, 2017), I applied for corporate registration of Matsui Glocal LLC to Fukushima District Legal Affairs Bureau. Then, today became the establishment day of Matsui Glocal LLC.

I have used the name “Matsui Glocal” until now, but the status has been a freelancer. Now, I has started my activities in the name of corporation as LLC (Limited Liability Company), even though there is no employee and this is one-man company.

Because the registration procedure will be completed in April 20, 2017, my activities as LLC will start completely after that. Now I will make preparation to my LLC activities.

The objectives of Matsui Glocal LLC in Articles of Incorporation are as follows.

  1. Research, advising and consulting on local/community development
  2. Research, advising and consulting on business support
  3. Research, advising and consulting on international cooperation
  4. Interaction/collaboration support in local/community development, business support, and international cooperation
  5. Research, analyzing and information provision on Indonesian politics, economies, and social/cultural affairs
  6. Making lecture, facilitation and coordination in seminar, workshop, training and meeting

Because my mission is “to be catalyst to create something new and good with connecting local to local”, I must make my root in local. So, I established Matsui Glocal LLC in my home town, Fukushima city in Japan. I had planned this since before.

From Fukushima as my main base, and Tokyo, Makassar, Jakarta and others as my sub bases, I want to do activities what is required to me at places where I am needed in Japan, Indonesia, and other places in the world without any borders.

Locals including Fukushima try to their own capacities. They respect, learn and act each other beyond borders of countries, religions, and races. If those are realized, the future would be more warm, more fun, and more interesting, I think.

I start this from Fukushima. Through Matsui Glocal LLC, I start my journey to make such my colleague in the world and make such future together.

 

Glocal in my context: Matsui Glocal

What is glocal? Of course, glocal is an artificial word made from global and local.

According to Oxford dictionary, glocal is “reflecting or characterized by both local and global considerations”. Or in Longman, it is “relating to the connections or relationships between global and local businesses, problems etc”.

Generally, global and local are opposite words each other, as globalization vs localization. Globalization is regarded as enemy from local. In Indonesia and maybe other developing countries, globalization is almost synonym with westernization, capitalism, imperialism, USA & Europe, or sometimes with christianization.

We remember that developing countries had felt to be exploited under colonialism by Western countries. So, the concept structure between globalization – localization and exploit – exploited has not been changed.

However, developing countries should know that many local people in USA or EU also criticize against impact of globalization. Such people played big role to win new USA President last year.

It means that almost all local people of the world, not only in developing countries but also in developed countries, feel and battle the globalization.

I understand that there is a universal basic issue in local society everywhere in the world. Local peoples in USA, EU, Indonesia, and Japan are facing to the same universal issues.

That is the crisis of local identities. Collapse of “who we are, where we live, what our life is”. Local life cannot be separated from so-called globalization, including using mobile phone, internet, or imported consumer goods.

The problem is not developed countries vs developing countries. But, what we keep and develop our own life with local identity.

Local people often think only they are in the worst condition because they know about only their local society. But, you are not alone. Even though the character and level of living is different, almost all local people feel and think the same.

In this context, I myself want to define glocal as global network of locals without border of administrations, and countries.

My glocal has no best model to be learned by others. No intention to apply a model to others. My glocal respects each locality and tries to settle the respect among locals. We start from such respect to others or at least recognition of others. Then, facilitate to learn each other to know more about ourselves in the local, for next step.

I will do more with local anywhere in the world. I believe the local-to-local network in global will change current confrontative situation, if we start from ourselves and our daily life, not from ideology or political jargon.

Meeting with IKAPEKSI South Sulawesi

After arriving at Makassar at noon in January 13, I met members of IKAPEKSI South Sulawesi. IKAPEKSI is Ikatan Pengusaha Kenshusei Indonesia, Indonesian ex-Japan-Trainee Businessmen’s League.

They were ex-Trainee in Japan for three years. Mainly worked in small and medium enterprises in Japan to officially learn know-how and technique/technology to be applied in Indonesia in the future. However, some Japanese companies regarded them as cheap labors because of serious shortage of labors in industrial sector.

Officially, government of Japan does not permit immigrant labors in Japan but in fact those trainee are used to fill the labor shortage.

IKAPEKSI was established spontaneously by ex-trainee themselves without any support of government of Japan and Indonesia. Most of members of IKAPEKSI manage their own companies, work in companies, and start their own small business. The ex-training program has contribute to create new entrepreneurs and skilled labors in Indonesia.

I have been an advisor to IKAPEKSI since 2015. I am happy to meet the South Sulawesi part members this time and want to support them.

Trip to Indonesia and Malaysia (12-18 Jan 2017)

As the first trip to outside Japan in 2017, I will visit Indonesia and Malaysia in 12-18 January 2017.

I plan to arrive at Malaysia in 12 January, and visit Melaka to meet new friends at noon. After that, bound for Kuala Lumpur to have dinner with my friends.

In 13 January, I will fly from Kuala Lumpur to Makassar, Indonesia. I hope I will meet my old friends during my stay in Makassar for four days, 13-16 January.

During my stay in Makassar, I will attend a wedding party of my friends in 14 January.

In 16 January evening, I will fly from Makassar to Kuala Lumpur. After meeting with my friend there in 17 January, I will fly from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo in 18 January.

I hope this trip will be the start point for me to extend my work horizontally from Indonesia to Malaysia and other countries.

My Hope in this 2017

I has started my work today (January 4) in 2017. I hope this 2017 would be happier and more peaceful year than before.

At the start-point of this year, I had set seven targets to be realized during this 2017. One of them are at least once a week posting to this my homepage. Others are secret.

I want to start my work extension not only from mostly Indonesia-Japan but also to multi-country network of local to local. I need to know and learn a lot of cases of local community and/or business development challenge in many countries. I believe we need a kind of mutual learning network among local communities, as an alternative network from nation-to-nation network.

From my experiences in Japan and Indoensia, every local community has faced to the same deep crisis and problem. That is the crisis of local identity caused by penetration of commercialization from outside. In other words, it is globalization. Every local community in universal crisis and problem.

Localization is regarded as the solution to overcome such globalization. But localization is not same as isolation with cutting the connection with outside. It is not possible to survive the local community.

I think we need a kind of global network among local communities in the world. Glocal is this meaning. This network cannot force to unify in one direction. There are many and many local communities in the world. So, without accepting and assuming those difference of local communities, such network cannot be realized.

This network is just for mutual learning and for avoiding loneliness feeling of each local community. Local communities are different, but their source of problem may be universal. Human beings should not feel loneliness. Local community may be the same.

I do not know how many persons agree with this thought in the world. If you are the person, I want to contact and meet you, and discuss and take action more.

I will start to extend my idea from visiting Malaysia and Indonesia in 12-17 January 2017.

2017 has just started.

Business Trip to Surabaya (7-11 Dec 2016)

Maybe this is the last business trip to Indonesia from Japan in 2016.

I was suddenly asked to participate a business trip by a researcher of IGES (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies), a semi-government research institute in Japan, to Surabaya when I was in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for special lecture at Gadjah Mada University (22-24 November 2016).

This time I was asked to join her preliminary survey on sustainable community development in Surabaya, Indonesia. I brought her to meet young activists of C2O library and Ayorek to make a platform for community development in Surabaya, a specialist on environmental issues in Surabaya, and women’s group to promote mangrove conservation and community development.

I hope this field survey would be useful for IGES study in the next stage.

What is my next stage? Please stay tuned in 2017 !

Lecture in Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia

I will stay in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 21-25 November 2016.

I will give a public lecture to students of Gadjah Mada University on “Career Development and Corporate Culture of Japanese companies” in 22 November 2016.

In 23-24 November 2016, I will make individual consultations with 9 students of Gadjah Mada University who are interested in Japan and Japanese companies.

The used language is Bahasa Indonesia.

This is a collaboration program between Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia, and Aichi Prefectural University, Japan. I will do this as visiting researcher of Aichi Prefectural University.

After half-day stop at Singapore in 25 November, I will go back to Tokyo in 26 November.

I will stay in the campus of Gadjah Mada University. See you my friends in Yogyakarta and Singapore if possible.

 

Business Trip to Batu (31 Oct – 1 Nov)

I visited Kota Batu again in 31 October – 1 November. This is the last visit this year to complete the cooperation and collaboration direction between Kota Batu and Fukushima City in agriculture sector.

A proposal was submitted from Fukushima to Batu and we discussed it together. Because the proposal was satisfied with needs from Kota Batu, generally we agreed.

Fukushima team was welcomed by Mayor of Kota Batu, too. Fukushima team appreciated very much on very warm acceptance and positive response from the mayor on the cooperation and collaboration direction.

We will start next step to long-term partnership between Kota Batu and Fukushima City.

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Fukushima Team with Mayor of Kota Batu

 

Schedule in September to November 2016

My schedule in September, October, and November 2016 has been revised. Please see http://matsui-glocal.com/events/ . I will be in Indonesia next time from September 27 to October 23, and from October 30 to November 5.
9〜11月のスケジュールを更新しました。http://matsui-glocal.com/events/ をご覧ください。次のインドネシア出張は、9/27-10/23 及び 10/30-11/5 の予定です。

Visit Umaji Village

Visit Umaji Village in Kochi Prefecture. Umaji is Uma (horse) plus ji (road). It means we must reach Umaji by horse. But it is old story. Now we can enjoy smooth car drive to Umaji even though the road is narrow and winding.

Umaji, whose population is 930 persons,  is now famous as success case of local revitalization by processing of yuzu, very good smelling citrus. JA Umaji has 5 factories to process many kinds of yuzu goods, as yuzu drink, yuzu ponzu source, yuzu jam, yuzu chili, yuzu pepper, yuzu liqueur, yuzu cosmetics, yuzu ‘aromatics, and so on. Yuzu seed becomes good material for cosmetics.

2016-09-08-14-45-54

Amazing, isn’t it? Only 930-populated tiny village in mountainous area has 5 factories. Most of products are sold through mail order or internet to all areas in Japan, with increasing the number of fans of Umaji. Umaji offers the status of special villager to those fans.

This has been promoted by JA Umaji. JA Umaji has its very unique and impressive business model to revive tiny mountainous village, through the integration of production of yuzu, processing, and marketing.

However, as other villages in Japan, Umaji also faces to depopulation and aging. How is the way to satisfy with increasing market demand for yuzu products under decreasing of labor? Mechanization is one of the answer with 5 factories. But, is it sustainable in the future? Is it overcapacity or not?

The challenge of Umaji will be severer.

 

Business Trip to Kochi & Fukushima (8-13 Sep. 2016)

In the name of “JICA Program on Data Collection Survey on Public-Private-Partnership for Activating Agricultural Promotion in Indonesia”, I will visit Kochi and Fukushima with local government officials from Indonesia in 8-13 September, 2016.

This JICA Program studies on the possibility to create partnership and cooperation in agriculture and/or livestock sector between local government in Indonesia and Japan, and between government and private sector. The key is how to realize win-win partnership between them.

So, even in the name of JICA, this is not pure assistance or aid program from Japan to Indonesia.

I will visit Kochi in 8-10 September and Fukushima in 11-13 September.

 

Fukushima and Malang/Batu

In the name of JICA survey on local to local partnership in agriculture between Indonesia and Japan, I brought three persons from Fukushima city to Malang and Batu, East Java, Indonesia, in July 26-28, 2016.

Fukushima and Malang/Batu have the same character as center of fruits production and processing. Fukushima is very famous as production center of peach, pear, apple and other fruits except orange. Malang and Batu are famous as apple, orange, crystal guava, and other tropical fruits.

In Malang and Batu, we discussed with those two local governments about the direction of this supposed partnership and share the philosophy of agriculture in the future. We agreed with farmers-centered agricultural industrialization against strong wave of globalization through market forces.

In other words, the main objective is to improve the position and income of farmers, supported by manufacturers. More focus on sustainability and continuity of interaction between farmers and manufacturers, rather than the increase of production and productivity that are requested by market force.

For example, vacuum fried chips (kripik) are main products of fruit processing in Malang and Batu now. Because of that, the future of kripik is not prospective because more manufacturers will start to produce kripik and more supply of kripik will decline the value of processing. Very difficult to increase the income of farmers. Processing-centered strategies will not always be good result to farmers.

So, my guests from Fukushima requested farmers in Malang and Batu not just satisfy as suppliers of fruits materials for manufacturers, but try to produce qualified fresh fruits against dominant imported fruits in Indonesian market. Food security is the biggest concern of Fukushima after the nuclear power plant accident. Fukushima has made extra hard effort to recover its trust in agriculture market until now.

The key is not only the quality, but also the security of foods and agricultural products. Also, organic products are not always accepted in market if they are not so delicious. Farmers try to produce delicious fruits with paying attention to food security (and may be in organic way). We think this with seeing many small apples in a tree in Batu.

In September, we will invite local government officials from Malang and Batu to Fukushima to see and understand the system of agriculture, mainly of fruits. We will continue to discuss about real partnership building in fruits promotion between Fukushima and Malang/Batu. See the next step.

 

Visit Malang City & Batu City (14-15 July)

In the name of JICA survey, I visited Malang city and Batu city in East Java province in July 14-16, 2016.

This survey will search for possible cooperation and partnership relation between local government in Japan and in Indonesia to promote win-win private business development on agriculture and livestock sector.

So, there are two kinds of partnership in this survey: local government in Japan and local government in Indonesia; and government sector and private sector in each local government.

Malang city and Batu city are included as the candidate local government in Indonesia, especially in the field of fruits production, processing and marketing development. So, what will the partner candidate in Japan?

Anyway, in July 14, I visited the Office of Agriculture of Malang city to discuss with the Head at 8:30 am. Unfortunately, he was asked by Mayor to attend urgent important meeting in the City Hall. So, I had to just wait for the finish of the meeting. Maybe 1-2 hours, I think.

At last, I could meet the Head at 3 pm. He wanted me to meet the Mayor. I was very surprised at hearing it because it is usually very difficult to make appointment the local head as Governor, district head (Bupati), or Mayor.

Fortunately, thanks to the initiative of the Head of the Office of Agriculture, I met the Mayor, Bapak H. Moch. Anton. I explained about our survey and he appreciated us very much. He gave some suggestions and hints to promote next step for partnership building with local government in Japan.

What will happen in the next step? We will see it later.

2016-07-14 16.07.25

Left to Right: Bapak Wasto (Chairman of Bappeda); Me; Bapak H. Moch. Anton (Mayor); Bapak Kristiawan (Fruits Processing Expert); Bapak Hadi Santoso (Head of Office of Agriculture)

 

Welcome to Matsui Glocal LLC / 松井グローカル合同会社

With more than 30 years experiences and human networks as a specialist of Indonesian affairs, Matsui Glocal LLC assists your business and activities widely and deeply in/with Japan, Indonesia, and local-to-local in the world. Dengan pengalaman kerja dan jaringan berbagai kalangan sebagai ahli Indonesia selama 30 tahun lebih, Matsui Glocal LLC mendukung bisnis dan kegiatan anda lebih luas dan lebih dalam di/dengan Jepang, Indonesia, dan lokal-lokal di dunia. 30年以上のインドネシアとのお付き合い、インドネシアの中央・州・県・市政府、大学、NGO、商工会議所、民間企業、農民グループ等と築いてきたネットワークを活用し、日本とインドネシア、他の世界、ローカルとローカルを広く深くつなげる仕事をしていきます。詳しくは、こちらのページをご覧ください。また、日本語の個人ブログ「ぐろーかる日記」もご覧ください。

2016 New Year Greeting from Tokyo

Japanese Version

A Happy New Year 2016 from Tokyo !

Love and Peace for all people in the world !


In April, 2015, my work base was moved from Indonesia to Japan. Now I often go and back between Japan and Indonesia as an independent consultant and facilitator. Recently, not only Japanese side but Indonesian side has asked me to be speaker in a seminar or to consult about local business development.

In 2016, I will set up my main work base in Fukushima-city, my hometown, and sub base in Tokyo. This is for my preparation to start my role as a catalyst to connect local-to-local and local-to-global without any border of nation, generation, race, ethnicity and so on.

At first, I will try to approach from Fukushima to locals in Japan and locals in the world, not only to extend real information about Fukushima but also to share challenges and new ideas to tackle serious global issues from viewpoints of locals in the world.

Of course, I will continue to work as a specialist of Indonesian affairs, to increase  and strengthen the mutual trust relationship between Japan and Indonesia. Yes, trust relationship is not limited to Japan and Indonesia, but all of the world. So, I also want to visit local communities in many countries to spread our activities. Please invite me.

With paying attention to our local communities, I want to be professional catalyst to connect people to people, local to local, and local to global with creating new hope and sharing our better future.

I believe many friends take actions in the same direction to realize them, starting little things from our daily life. Please share our hope and let’s support together.

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My Lecture at Rikkyo University, Tokyo

In December 18, 2015, I was asked to give a lecture at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, by my friend, Prof. Mitsuhiko Kataoka. He has given his lecture of Development Economics not in Japanese but in English, even though most of his students are Japanese.

So, I had to give my lecture in English. Indeed, I can speak Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) far better than my English (maybe sometimes than my Japanese when I try to joke). In addition, one observer, who is an English specialist, attended my lecture.

According to Prof. Kataoka, I must speak about my job description, career path, essential skills for my work, and some stories based on my experiences. Because this lecture is in line with Development Economics, I had tried to give students some opportunities to think about development assistance. Yes, some of the students want to work in the world of development assistance.

I put some essential skills for my job as follows. (1) Flexibility. Acceptability of Differences; (2) Curiosity. Enjoy something strange; (3) Inquiring minds. Not satisfy easily; (4) Always think something new; (5) Imagination on others; and (6) Toughness and good health.

After that, I gave some keywords to think about development assistance.

For example, development; community; empowerment; outsider / insider; exogenous / indigenous; ownership / sense of belongings; and conscientization.

By using these keywords, I had tried to give an opportunity for students to think about relationship between who conducts development assistance project and who are beneficiaries of the project.

I asked students how they feel if one day foreigners suddenly come to their village to explain about the project. They answered that it was none of their business and annoying. So, how is the way for outsiders to get real needs for the project from insiders? Maybe insiders sometimes didn’t know their real issues and problems as needs for the project. Or, assumptions of the project are not always based on the real issues and problems.

During our discussion, they found that the project has no meanings if it is not based on real needs from real issues and problems. Insiders usually try to match themselves to what outsiders want, by saying “what can I do for you?” or “may I help you?”. Because of time limitation of the project, outsiders often ignore to check their assumption about project needs again and again to insiders.

For students, such discussion was maybe not common in their lecture. So, I asked to them to think about how to grow-up insiders’ ownership and sense of belongings by themselves without compulsion from outsiders. In other words, how to realize concientization of insiders by themselves.

I think, my 45 minutes of lecture time was not enough to discuss those things, but, I tried to give them the first opportunities to think development assistance not only from donor side but also from beneficiary side. I needed another two or three lecture time, maybe.

Anyway, I want to say thank you very much to Prof. Kataoka to give me very good chance to give my lecture to students. I am very glad if my lecture give them a little insight to think of their future by themselves.

And also thank you for your patience to read my poor English !

 

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