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PROCESS Worldwide-01-2003
We`re all in the same boat
If I were to ask you to name a corporation that is 100 percent American – meaning a company that produces in the USA, whose suppliers and customers come from the USA and that does not have a single development manager or major shareholder from anywhere other than the USA, then your reply would probably be a long time coming.
Nor would the problem be any different if the country in question were not the USA but some other industrialized nation, because in this age of globalization, the chemical and pharmaceutical industry has long since ceased to be purely German or French, British or American. Many now fear that the international discord triggered by the Iraq crisis could put many of the business world’s interrelationships sorely to the test. Are American investors refusing to invest in Germany or France? Can Germany and the USA still be classed as friends?
Headlines such as these are borne largely of ignorance. Quite apart from the fact that the hysteria described above afflicts just a tiny minority of the people in both countries, it would be all but inconceivable for most of those in industry. DuPont, for example, has 135 factories in 70 different countries all over the world. BASF has 100 factories spread right across the globe, Celanese has 25 locations in 11 different countries, and Dow Chemical no fewer than 208 plants in 38 countries. And if, then, one bears in mind that the transatlantic trade only in chemical products was worth a total of 61.9 billion dollars in 2001, then it soon becomes clear that our economies are no longer swayed by the whims of a few – even if they happen to be our heads of government.
Viewed against this backdrop, the USA Special (page 12) can be regarded as yet another manifestation of the global nature of our industries, as can the large supplement, 'Achema magazine', which begins on page 36. For despite the current tensions, some 200 American-based corporations will be attending this year’s Achema in Frankfurt am Main, Germany – all with the aim of presenting their products and solutions to processing industries worldwide. I am also firmly convinced that those who attend Achema will soon realize that as much as the Iraq crisis is likely to dominate conversation, it cannot seriously endanger the long-term health of our transatlantic relations.
No more than can the current weakness of the global economy. And who knows, perhaps after Achema, we will discover that not only is our friendship with America still intact, but that the fair itself has provided new impetus for an international upturn.
-Frank Jablonski-
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