Where your kit gets made On November 20th, I visited the Indonesian island of Batam. And about an hour after I left, a protest by local workers over the minimum wage just about turned into a riot.
The day before, I've since learned, local Police and Army units fought each other in a six-hour battle sparked by allegations Army members freelanced as fuel smugglers. The two groups don't get on as a result, a confrontation in the street became heated and 30 infantry decided it would be a good idea to march on the Police station and start shooting. Police fired back and a soldier was killed.
I would not have visited Batam if I'd known about the battle. My interest was sparked by the island's reputation as a place Singapore uses as a convenient place for industries it would rather not house itself, because they need cheap labour, lots of land, gentle tax laws, uncomplicated environmental regulations, or all of the above. I was in Singapore, had a free day, knew Batam was just an hour away by ferry and recalled that Reg readers have responded to stories like our visit to Taipei's technology malls or report on a floating mobile phone shop.
So off I went to see Batam for myself.
Batam also seemed worth a visit because its back story is interesting: in the late 1980s, Singapore teamed with Indonesia and Malaysia to create a “growth triangle” whereby each can leverage the resources of the other nations. Indonesia's contributions include lots of people happy to work for less than Singaporeans, cheap land and a tax-free zone. Singapore brings capital, expertise and regional offices plenty of big businesses looking for places to locate factories.
The growth triangle has worked: in 30 years Batam's gone from a sleepy island of 50,000 residents to host a population of over a million and become an outpost for some of the global technology industry's biggest names.
Super-ODM Flextronics is there. Epson assembles printers and scanners. Panasonic does something to do with optical drives. Semiconductor manufacturing kit-maker Unisem is there. Schneider Electric has a sensor plant. On the ferry I bumped into folks from Germany battery concern Varta, and GE. The latter makes oil drilling kit on the island. The former has a micro-battery facility on the island: there's a chance a button cell you've used passed through Batam, as did the printer in your office and the Blu-Ray player at home.
Seeing the conditions under which that kit is made Batam seemed worthwhile. News about Batam doesn't go far beyond the growth triangle. And as I discovered before and after I visited, it seems nobody, anywhere, wants to talk about it.
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