Via the North Pole to Hong Kong

Luckily Chinese Airlines continue flying over Russia, and so I was able to take the short cut from Toronto over the North Pole to Hong Kong. It is interesting watching the flight map, diving into Asia from that perspective. Still the 12 hour time difference, made me a little trouble this time. Then I also caught a fever and still had to flag pole over Macao due to a delayed visa process. So, everything became very tightly scheduled and there was only very little time for anything extra. I did not even go over to Lamma Island: no hike, no seafood, no nothing really. I apologize to all the friends I did not see this time.

Hong Kong is slowly digging itself out of the Covid-recession. It’s not easy. It helps to be closer connected to Shenzhen and the Pearl River Delta. But you can feel, the city is in a bit of an identity crisis. But at least it’s peaceful, unlike it was in 2029. That’s partly a result of the National Security Law implemented, and also because economic pressures start biting. There were celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. And as usual, an amazing fireworks lit up the skyline. 75 years. That’s a lifetime, and a period of tremendous development in China - including ups and downs.

Just after finishing my course at Hong Kong University, I drove to the airport and travelled to Turkey. This time over India with a little detour. I like Turkey a lot, and I can only imagine that it must have a great economic future. There is no real reason why for example many German companies should not move production capacities into Turkey. The country has a young, well trained and motivated workforce. There are some unwise economic policies, I think. But that should not be hard to fix.

Finally, my trip also brought me to Germany, in a plane from Antalya full with German tourists. Luckily it was just a 3 hour flight, and manageable. But when landing in Germany, still with this preparation, it came to me like a shock how agressive the environment has become. Germans lives in the frustration of the second year of self inflicted recession, and meaningless government slogans like “Doppelwums”, “Wachstumsturbo”, “Bauturbo”, “Zeitenwende” … The socialist past socialist GDR-Slogans at least were not baby speak, and you could understand the words, if not the intended meaning. The effect though is the same: nobody listens anymore. Instead they start blaming random groups for their misery. Sometimes they even blame me. Today I parked my Vespa motorcycle (orderly) in front of a shop to get some food and somebody just kicked it over to the ground, while yelling something about immigrants. Luckily, actually an immigrant, helped me to put it back on its wheels, so I could continue my ride. Let’s see how this stopover in Germany is going to continue.

From Turkey to Germany

I am always amazed by Turkey. The economic fundamentals of the country should be pretty strong. This is why I am puzzled by the economic turmoil it has been in for decades. Sure, there are some political decisions which are mind-boggling, like the interest rate policies of the Turkish Central Bank. But it should not be hard to get Turkey well on its feet. It is already a very attractive location to move production and other industries. It has competitive energy prices, a well-trained workforce and a young demography. The location is a strategic advantage, and so is the foreign relations, which are very much developed for the benefit of Turkey.

Terrorism by the PKK is still a problem, but thanks to the recent strikes against their infrastructure and manpower, capabilities have been diminished. Like other terrorist organisations, the PKK uses their people as human shields so that civil tragedies tragically happen and are exploited by some “human rights groups”, putting themselves into the service of terrorism. This is a strategy I have also seen in Palestinian protests in Israel, where children were positioned in the front. And to the extreme, it is used now by Hamas. Hezbollah seems to do this less. But I also have only met Hezbollah in North Lebanon, so I am not in a conflict zone.

In Turkey, it was great to see the celebrations and decorations on October 29th, celebrating 100 years of the foundation of the Republic by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Unfortunately, I was not in Ankara, but I would have loved to see that.

Back in Germany for an administrative stopover, how fast this country goes down is frightening. Especially in larger cities, it became Zombieland. Voting the current German government into power was the “German Brexit”. Like the UK, Germany became a complete laughing stock. Society is split between socialist Lala-Land and a rising right wing, with little in between. For most Germans, I know, it’s time to leave. Today, the police found an M52 hand grenade in a public central place in Frankfurt / Main. That’s still Yougoslave-made, cheap and flooding the black market since the end of the Balkan wars in the 1990s. I can imagine what kind of arsenal we will get into criminal hands when the Ukrainian arms reach Western Europe the Ukrainian mafia. I guess the Germans will get back their guns soon. It is unclear to me how the Ukraine airspace will ever be safe for civil aviation again. The odds that somebody keeps a shoulder-fired ground-to-air missile for decades to shoot down a plane are pretty high, I guess.

Search for the middle of the world

Searching the middle of the world is a very legitimate calling, I find. Stories of such searches have been told in many ways. For some, like Jule Verne, it is an expedition to the geometric center of the globe. For others, like Ursula Priess it is the encounter with stories and people in Istanbul, as she wrote in “Mitte der Welt: Erinnerungen an Istanbul” (The Middle if the World: Memories on Istanbul). I have visited this beautiful and magic town for a few days and was unfortunately only able to browse through her book before departure and not to read it properly, similar to also just scratching the surface of the town. I will for sure read the book upon return to Germany and blend it with my impressions. Luckily I read Orhan Pamuk’s “Istanbul, memories of a city”, which is a Turkish memoir which I liked a lot.

My main task here this time was to understand the economic momentum concerning the construction material industry. It is research done regarding the Zukunftskonferenz of B+L GmbH in July 2019, in which the future of residential and non-residential construction output will be forecasted and discussed. The basis of this. are quantitative models which have been developed for over 20 years. For cases with big question marks and large political interference, we conduct fact-finding trips and meet and interview industry insiders in the country. And this is what brought me to Istanbul.

Since the attempted military coup in July 2016, Turkey has been in the light of scepticizm. As one of the three main factors for driving construction output is people's confidence in the future, this is not helpful. When the Turkish Lira lost value against the US$ by about 30 % in a crash in mid-2018, this was also an expression of this sentiment and was driving inflation up to around 20 % today. The bank lending rates are also about this high (20%), which does not combat inflation, because other stimulus activities overcompensate this. One effect is, that nobody borrows money to buy residential property. Those who would have the money to do so, rather deposit it in the bank, where they get a higher interest return than they would ever get by renting out. And currently, if you need a home, renting is the much better deal. Even the potential demand for residential units is high with a young population of 80 million, the low confidence and bad financing situation brought construction to a shrieking halt. For developers, now it's a "wait and see game" which the ones with the deeper pockets are likely to win. For office buildings in Istanbul, some talk about a utilization of only 2/3. And walking through the places, this seems plausible. I spare you the photos of abandoned construction sites and homes for sale and offices for rent. But I do post some pictures of the bright sides I encountered below. The brightest though were the people I met, which will be for obvious reasons not represented by photos. Turkey is one of the most friendly places when it comes to its people. And I do wish them well.