[Many of Nepal's ancient temples - which, along with its Himalayan scenery and trekking routes, have long been major tourist attractions - were damaged or destroyed in the earthquake. The famous white-domed Boudhanath temple in Kathmandu reopened in November, but the $2.1 million repair job was funded privately.]
By Simon Roughneen
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In this Nov. 22, 2016
photo, people mark the re-opening of Boudhanath stupa in
Kathmandu, as Nepal celebrates the
official completion of restoration work on
the historic site, which was damaged in the
country's 2015 earthquake. © AP
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JAKARTA - Binod Chaudhary, Nepal's best-known - and
possibly only - billionaire, is famous for his surprising, even disarming,
frankness.
Chaudhary, who heads a diversified global
business empire ranging from real estate to telecoms, wrote in his
autobiography that to get ahead in Nepal requires one to "hobnob with the
right people" - perhaps a reference to his history of doing business with
the country's former royal family.
Such candor does not take long to surface
when Chaudhary, president of the Chaudhary Group and estimated to be worth
about $1.2 billion, discusses politics in Nepal.
More than 20 months after a devastating
7.8-magnitude earthquake hit his country, leaving nearly 9,000 people dead and
17,866 injured, and destroying roughly 1 million homes, Chaudhary said he was
"not happy at all" with the pace of recovery.
"We should have done a lot more - we are
still struggling. Our monuments are [just] starting to be restored,"
Chaudhary, 61, told the Nikkei Asian Review on the sidelines of a Forbes
business conference in Jakarta.
Many of Nepal's ancient temples - which,
along with its Himalayan scenery and trekking routes, have long been major
tourist attractions - were damaged or destroyed in the earthquake. The famous
white-domed Boudhanath temple in Kathmandu reopened in November, but the $2.1
million repair job was funded privately.
Disputes over the introduction of a new
constitution, intended to stabilize Nepal's divisive politics, resulted in a
damaging delay to the start of the National Reconstruction Authority, the
government's main post-earthquake rebuilding agency, which was not formed until
early 2016.
"Twenty-five years, 22
governments," Chaudhary said, his usual steady baritone betraying a hint
of exasperation at Nepal's notoriously fractious politics and frequent changes
of government. "Even to put in place the authority for reconstruction took
a year - the parties were still fighting over who to put in charge," said
Chaudhary, who pledged $2.5 million of his own money toward the reconstruction
of schools and homes.
Despite Chaudhary's criticism of Nepal's
politics, however, it was political disruption that spurred his global business
ambitions two decades ago as landlocked Nepal - one of Asia's poorest countries
and heavily influenced by neighboring India and China -- began to look too
small and too unstable.
The onset of a Maoist insurgency in the
mid-1990s was the trigger for Chaudhary's first foreign business venture in
Singapore -- a double irony given that it was a leftist, anti-capitalist
rebellion that prompted the emergence of Nepal's first multinational
corporation.
"Businessmen have to learn to adapt
themselves to changing environments," Chaudhary said. "Nothing is
static in this world."
A
better life
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Nepalese tycoon and
philanthropist Binod Chaudhary in
conversation with the
Nikkei Asian Review on Dec. 1
(Photo by Simon
Roughneen)
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The Chaudhary family history is one of making
the best of hardship and of transforming difficulty into opportunity. The
founder of the business, Chaudhary's grandfather Bhuramul, left the arid north
Indian state of Rajasthan in the late 19th century, seeking a better life
elsewhere in British-ruled South Asia.
Displaying similar adaptability -- and a
comparable nose for an opening -- Binod Chaudhary transformed the Chaudhary
Group into the powerhouse it is today when he noticed that Nepalis flying home
from Thailand usually came back weighed down with consignments of instant
noodles. By using leftover flour from a biscuit factory, Chaudhary began
producing Nepal's first instant noodles, under the brand name Wai Wai (Thai for
"quick," a nod to its inspiration).
Now, the Chaudhary Group is what the founder
himself describes as a "diversified group with over 45 companies, 60
brands in 30 countries and over 6,000 employees under its wings." The
group's operations include eight noodle plants in India -- with more lined up
for Bangladesh, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and Serbia - as well as hotels scattered
around Asia, and property developments and construction work in East Africa and
the Persian Gulf.
Chaudhary said that technological advances
have transformed how business is done. "When I started back in the '70s,
life was completely different. It was an age when we used to write letters,
when we used to go to [the] telecoms department to make overseas calls," he
recalled. "Connectivity has changed lives, but it has made the world open
and free, so competition is of a different scale."
Chaudhary said that most old-style businesses
will have to adapt or die. That daunting counsel comes, however, with an
encouraging, if perhaps obvious caveat: Risk-taking and hard work can go a long
way toward success.
"The way most businesses are run is
under threat because of the new tech-based [disruption that is] taking
place," he said, adding that Chaudhary Group has set up a venture capital
unit to harness so-called "disruptive businesses."
Technology-reliant innovators such as Airbnb
and Uber, for example, have challenged, or "disrupted," existing
hotel and taxi services. Rather than be caught out by trailblazing competitors,
Chaudhary prefers to get in on the act by funding new ventures.
"Airbnb has 700,000 rooms in no time.
Uber has become the world's largest taxi company with no cars," Chaudhary
noted. "If you wake up, if you can put together a system to not miss the
bus. It is a huge opportunity," he said, citing the photographic company
Kodak and mobile phone maker BlackBerry as companies that failed to adapt to
technological advances.
A different perspective
A businessman who for a period led a
"double life" as a politician -- he was a member of Nepal's
parliament from 2008 to 2012 -- Chaudhary believes that politics is changing in
tandem with business and technology.
"The time has come when we look at
politics in a different perspective," he said, commenting on the unexpected
U.S. presidential election victory of Donald Trump, a billionaire who made a
late-life transition to politics. "The whole world has become one; people
are competing trying to attract [foreign direct investment]," he said.
"People are making radical changes."
Chaudhary did not answer directly when asked
if he planned to emulate Trump. However, he said: "In my country it is
late, it is overdue, people have to think out of the box, people want
change." "People want persons who can deliver, who have
delivered," he added for Trump's victory.
Chaudhary dismissed the notion that the
hard-charging, deal-making nature of the business world clashes with the
inertia and necessary compromises of politics. "The rules of the game are
the same whether you are running a government or business," he said.
"In many ways in government you have a
lot of things on your side -- you are calling all your own shots, so it is
easier," added Chaudhary, who has traveled frequently to Japan since
joining the Chaudhary empire when he was 18 and becoming a self-declared fan of
the Japanese work ethic.
Chaudhary thinks it is more difficult to be a
successful businessman than a winning politician, especially in poorer
developing countries such as Nepal, although the country fared moderately well
among those surveyed in the latest global annual "ease of doing
business" league table, published by the World Bank last October.
Although it dropped seven places in the past
year to 107th among 190 countries covered, Nepal was the second-best business
location among the low-income countries surveyed after Rwanda. However,
corruption and poor infrastructure along with political instability are factors
hindering business in Nepal, the suevey found.
Transparency International ranked Nepal at
number 130 of 175 countries in the 2015 edition of its widely cited global
corruption index, published last January, and the World Economic Forum listed
it at 98th among 138 countries covered in its latest economic competitiveness
index, released in September. The WEF noted that Nepal's sound macroeconomic
management was undermined by poor infrastructure.
"In business you have to face the
practical problems and limitations of the overall enabling environment, but
also, in the Third World, the artificial impediments that the government and
parties put forward," Chaudhary said. If business people could overcome
such obstacles, he noted, "commercial success should soon follow."
