PSIE’S BLOG

A few days ago, we launched PSIE’s blog, hoping to get people to write about and share their business ideas. However we have not received any comments or signs of excitement. It dawn on me that may be we needed to break the ice first. With that in mind, I would like to invite people from all over the world to write about and introduce their respective countries. It is true that we can all find this information on the Internet, but it is different when you have someone who lives the experience writing about it. Please get on your keyboard and tell us about your country, first talk about the geographical location, population, political system, then focus on what your country has to offer to the rest of the business world, what products or commodities are hot and how business deals can be smoothly conducted in your part of the world.

It is sometimes true that we all want to make quick bucks in this business, but laying a solid foundation for it is also very important. The more reliable sources that we have the better chances of being successful we are.  You will probably agree with me that the number one reason why lot of people are not able to close deals in this business is that they are trying to represent a product that they do not have or do not know the source of. How many time are we involved in deals that look real good in the beginning with a “real buyer” and a “real seller” at the end, but then as we go along, we discover the real truth about those fake people? We can avoid that by deal with people we come to know and trust, that can start right here by building a real network of genuine people knowledgeable about real products from their part of the world.

Generally, people tend to overlook their own potential, products or other things they can offer or take advantage of what is right there in their own backyard just as in the story of the “Acres of Diamond” which narrated by an old Arab guide to Russell Conwell who told in his famous lectures in the following words:

“The old guide told me that there once lived not far from the River Indus an ancient Persian by the name of Ali Hafed. He said that Ali Hafed owned a very large farm; that he had orchards, grain-fields, and gardens; that he had money at interest and was a wealthy and contented man. One day there visited that old Persian farmer one of those ancient Buddhist priests, one of the wise men of the East. He sat down by the fire and told the old farmer how this old world of ours was made. 

He said that this world was once a mere bank of fog, and that the Almighty thrust His finger into this bank of fog, and began slowly to move His finger around, increasing the speed until at last He whirled this bank of fog into a solid ball of fire. Then it went rolling through the universe, burning its way through other banks of fog, and condensed the moisture without, until it fell in floods of rain upon its hot surface, and cooled the outward crust. Then the internal fires bursting outward through the crust threw up the mountains and hills, the valleys, the plains and prairies of this wonderful world of ours. If this internal molten mass came bursting out and cooled very quickly, it became granite; less quickly copper, less quickly silver, less quickly gold, and, after gold, diamonds were made. Said the old priest, “A diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight.” Now that is literally scientifically true, that a diamond is an actual deposit of carbon from the sun.

The old priest told Ali Hafed that if he had one diamond the size of his thumb he could purchase the county, and if the had a mine of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the influence of their great wealth. Ali Hafed heard all about diamonds, how much they were worth, and went to his bed that night a poor man. He had not lost anything, but he was poor because he was discontented, and discontented because he feared he was poor. He said, “I want a mine of diamonds,” and he lay awake all night. Early in the morning he sought out the priest. I know by experience that a priest is very cross when awakened early in the morning, and when he shook that old priest out of his dreams, Ali Hafed said to him:

“Will you tell me where I find diamonds?”

“Diamonds! What do you want with diamonds?”

“Why, I wish to be immensely rich.”

“Well, then, go along and find them. That is all you have to do; go and find them, and then you have them.”

“But I don’t know where to go.”

“Well, if you will find a river that runs through white sands, between high mountains, in those white sands you will always find diamonds.”

“I don’t believe there is any such river.”

“Oh yes, there are plenty of them. All you have to do is to go and find them, and then you have them.”

Said Ali Hafed, “I will go.”

So he sold his farm, collected his money, left his family in charge of a neighbor, and away he went in search of diamonds. He began his search, very properly to my mind, at the Mountains of the Moon. Afterward he came around into Palestine, then wandered on into Europe, and at last when his money was all spent and he was in rags, wretchedness, and poverty, he stood on the shore of that bay at Barcelona, in Spain, when a great tidal wave came rolling in between the pillars of Hercules, and the poor, afflicted, suffering, dying man could not resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, and he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.

[….] The man who purchased Ali Hafed’s farm one day led his camel into the garden to drink, and as that camel put its nose into the shallow water of that garden brook, Ali Hafed’s successor noticed a curious flash of light from the white sands of the stream. He pulled out a black stone having an eye of light reflecting all the hues of the rainbow. He took the pebble into the house and put it on the mantel, which covers the central fires, and forgot all about it.

A few days later this same old priest came in to visit Ali Hafed’s successor, and the moment he opened that drawing-room door he saw that flash of light on the mantel, and he rushed up to it, and shouted:

“Here is a diamond! Has Ali Hafed returned?”

“Oh no, Ali Hafed has not returned, and that is not a diamond. That is nothing but a stone we found right out here in our own garden.”

“But,” said the priest, “I tell you I know a diamond when I see it. I know positively that is a diamond.”

Then together they rushed out into that old garden and stirred up the white sands with their fingers, and lo! There came up other more beautiful and valuable gems then the first. “Thus,” said the guide to me, “was discovered the diamond-mine of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond-mine in all the history of mankind, excelling the Kimberly itself. The Kohinoor, and the Orloff of the crown jewels of England and Russia, the largest on earth, came from that mine.”

[….] The moral to this story is very powerful, “Had Ali Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar, or underneath his own wheat fields or in his own garden, instead of wretchedness, starvation, and death by suicide in a strange land, he would have had ‘acres of diamonds.’ For every acre of that old farm, yes, every shovelful, afterward revealed gems which since have decorated the crowns of monarchs.”

Like Ali Hafed, we all have Diamonds in our own backyard, so to speak, waiting to be cut and polished. In Business, we can start very well by looking around us to find, what’s readily available and what we can offer with certainty without failing our business partners, colleagues and customers!

Dear reader, this is an excerpt of an article from the Wall Street Journal that we would like to share with you and get your comments on!

Diamonds may be forever. Diamond mining, maybe not.

With growth in diamond prices trailing far behind that of most commodities, some miners are turning their sights toward gold, iron ore and phosphate instead of sparkle.

Flinders Diamonds, an Australian miner, recently reassessed its exploration areas and identified a target in western Australia for iron ore, prices of which have been soaring along with demand for steel. It changed its name to Flinders Mines Ltd. to reflect its expanded focus. Its stocks soared upon the April announcement.

Last June, diamond miner Sierra Leone Diamond decided to change its name to African Minerals Ltd. to reflect its exploration of precious and base metals across the African continent. Bonaparte Diamond Mines of Australia just concluded a diamond joint venture in Namibia to focus instead on exploring a phosphate project there because “the economic return” from diamonds “doesn’t warrant moving into the next phase,” Michael Woodborne, the firm’s managing director, said in a statement. Prices of phosphate, a key component in fertilizer, are up dramatically lately.

For miners, the opportunity cost of investing time and shareholder money in diamonds is just part of the problem. On the demand side, diamond sales, at least in the U.S., have been struggling. Citing a sluggish U.S. market, which accounts for about 50% of the total, De Beers Group reported a 3.7% fall in revenue to $5.9 billion last year.

Compared to most commodities, diamond prices have been “extremely unexciting” over the past few years, says Charles Wyndham, founder of PolishedPrices.com, which keeps a wholesale diamond price index. This year, it is flat, and up 3.6% from a year earlier. Over the same time, S&P GSCI, a commodities benchmark, is up 37.6% and 73.5%, respectively.

The departure from diamond mining marks a reversal from several years ago. At least 60 new diamond-mining companies sprung up after diamond giant De Beers went private in 2001, estimates David Hargreaves, a mining and gemstone consultant to United Kingdom-based broker Hoodless Brennan Ltd. Yet, some newcomers may be finding that diamond mining is a trying and costly endeavor. Even if you find a diamond mine, it may take seven to 10 years before it produces, Mr. Hargreaves says.

Diamond mining is viewed as the “worst kind of gambling,” says Theo Botoulas, chief executive of BRC DiamondCore Ltd., a diamond miner in South Africa.

In January, Tahera Diamond Corp., a Canadian miner, ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy-court protection. “Not every diamond mine will be successful. It’s a very high-risk business,” said Gareth Penny, De Beers’s managing director.

Still, several players, like BRC, are keeping at it. They argue that long-term demand for diamonds world-wide is good, and prices of big, better-quality stones have risen rapidly. Instead of shunning the gem business, Canadian miner Aber Diamond Corp. took full ownership of Harry Winston Diamond Corp. and focused on high-end retail sales before it started trading under its new name on the New York Stock Exchange in November. The company reported a 10% increase in overall revenue for the first quarter because of strong sales growth in Asia and Europe, though its mining production fell 31%.

“Mining is a long-term game,” said Mr. Wyndham of PolishedPrices.com. “Those who are switching back and forth from one commodity to another usually won’t succeed.”

By Carolyn Cui at wsj.com

For that reason we have created this blog, to work towards that goal. We invite all the readers and participants to share their ideas and information on how we can reach our common goal in the international business arena.