Irish entrepreneurs in Asia are conscious of the coming downturn, but they are generally cautiously optimistic, writes Clifford Coonanin Kuala Lumpur

ASIA IS a region rich with rain forests and wide-open steppe, cities teeming with millions of people and beachfront resort towns, all offering a colourful tapestry of opportunity for Irish investors, despite the economic downturn. You find Irish businessfolk in Asia in all terrains, from gleaming cityscapes of steel and glass, to some of the most remote parts of the world.

Irish entrepreneurs at the Asia-Pacific Ireland Business Forum in Penang are conscious of a downturn heading their way, but they are generally cautiously optimistic that they will weather it.

No one knows how serious an effect the economic meltdown will have on Asia, but it is notable how many of the Irish working in the region made their mark during times of great adversity, setting up their businesses during the currency-inspired economic crisis of 1997 in the region, or at times of great political upheaval.

Jerome Kelly from Belfast arrived in Thailand in 1992, on the night before a major military coup. He set up his business, the insurance brokers and financial services group LawtonAsia, in 1997, around the time the baht all but collapsed, the height of the Asian financial crisis.

"There were a lot of opportunities for companies then, and there are now. Thailand is stronger now - the banking system is strong and lending is a lot stricter here. In some ways, the Thais are fed up. They're looking at the rest of the world and saying we weren't in such bad shape in 1997," said Kelly, who is president of the Irish Thai Chamber of Commerce.

Exports from Asia are set to fall, especially to the US and Europe, and people are talking of a blow to globalisation. In Thailand and other countries in the region, the focus is shifting to the Middle East and to intra-Asian trade with neighbours, including Japan and China.

"You see a lot of trade with other Asian countries now. I'm reasonably certain we'll come through this. The Thais are resilient people and they haven't overspent," Kelly said.

His advice is to focus on building contacts and ignore the headlines about Thailand's seemingly constant state of chassis, to paraphrase Seán O'Casey. "Ignore what you read in the newspapers - the country here ticks along very happily, regardless of who's in power," said Kelly.

"Find someone who can do the Thai side of the business. It's not like Singapore or Hong Kong, where foreigners can just walk in and set up. Thailand is maybe a bit more like China. But the rewards are there," he added.

There is a sense, almost a moral tone, particularly in southeast Asia, that Europe and the US have somehow let the world down by being careless with their money and not saving enough. In Thailand, the current economic turmoil is known as the "Hamburger Crisis", namechecking America's favourite food as partial revenge for western references to Thailand's woes in 1997 as "the Tom Yum Goong crisis". Politicians are looking inwards and questioning the whole notion of the free market.

"The irony of the demise of Lehman Brothers is not lost on Thais, who remember Lehman's role as a beneficiary of our crisis a decade ago. Once the dust settles, though, the disappearance of the likes of Lehman, Bear Stearns, AIG and even Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will be less of an issue than the questioning of the cult of the free-marketeer," wrote Korn Chatikavanij, Thai opposition finance spokesman.

Colin MacDonald, from Mount Merrion in Dublin, has lived in Asia for nearly 20 years and is president of the Irish Business Association in Singapore. He has worked in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei and Bahrain with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC) and CIC Bank, and has lived in Singapore since 1996.

MacDonald set up McCraic Holdings to run Father Flanagan's Irish pub, initially as a sideline, though it became one that proved lucrative enough to become a main business. The pub made money despite the fact that the Asian financial crisis was raging.

He has since opened the popular watering hole Molly Malone's, which has a brasserie upstairs, and the waterfront BQ Bar.

Last year he set up FineGrain, a property development company, which raised 50 million Singapore dollars (€25 million), two-thirds of it from Irish investors and one- third from Singapore investors. The company bought a building on Beech Road, an upcoming area on the edge of the central business district, and is in the process of refurbishing and letting that building, which will leave the group with equity to invest in other projects.

"So far we haven't really felt the downturn here. Since 1997 the city has had its ups and downs - the financial crisis, the whole post-September 11th thing, Sars . . . and I would say that Singapore has become good at adjusting to these events and this feels like another one of those," MacDonald said.

"Here you see the media talking about 'belt-tightening', and people will tighten their belts. Property transactions have dropped, though prices haven't slipped much yet. It's hit exports, like electronics, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

"You can expect retrenchment. But the local financial institutions are extremely robust. There is a lot going on within the Asean region at bilateral level. At government level, you can see the government is active on bilateral trade agreements. It signed a free trade agreement with China last week," MacDonald said.

He's been very involved in the Irish community in Singapore, but he is a big believer in getting to know the local community as a way of boosting business contacts.

"Singapore is a multicultural place and extremely open to foreign investors. When I started setting up my business here I didn't know anything about how to establish a company, but it's extremely straightforward," he said.

"I would recommend to anyone moving here to try and meet people beyond the expat community, getting a network in the local community - there is real value in doing that."

Some companies have found niche opportunities in Asia's breakneck growth. In May last year, Tralee-based Altobridge signed a deal with the leading Malaysian mobile operator, Maxis, to deploy their wireless GSM technology in small, remote communities and enterprises such as palm oil plantations to allow people there to have personal communications for the first time.

"This region is ripe for what we are doing," said Altobridge's local representative, Kerryman Peter Tuomey.

Telecoms companies make their money in the big cities, but they are also required to provide a service to remote communities, and this is where companies like Altobridge come in. Their technology basically provides cost-effective local switching for mobile-to-mobile calls at a base station.

"In the small communities it's economically difficult and logistically it doesn't stack up. In some of our sites the nearest urban centre is a three-hour drive. The furthest is an eight-hour drive from the urban centre on an unsurfaced road followed by an hour and a half by river boat," Tuomey said.

All of Altobridge's work in Malaysia is in remote eastern areas and Borneo. Each community it serves will typically have about 500 users.

In February this year, Altobridge signed a three-year deal in Mongolia for what are so far all commercial sites, mining companies mostly.

"China and India are not quite ready yet, maybe three to five years, but there is plenty of market here, the likes of the Philippines, Thailand, Laos and Bangladesh," Tuomey said.

"I don't see it as massively different here in terms of business culture. It's very commercial, in some cases more commercially minded than some companies I've dealt with in the West.

"People are very fair, very honest and I haven't had any issues. It's genuinely friendly. Be aware of the culture you operate in. And any sense of superiority or 'we know best' is misguided. Business is advanced out here and as aware as any business in the West."

Growing wealth in the region is encouraging greater philanthropy as people try to give something back. The Irish company Ammado is an online community, which offers many of the functions of a social networking site as well as allowing people to donate flexibly to charities and NGOs.

Ammado offers a "microphilanthropy" service, where people can decide exactly to which not-for-profit organisation their money goes. The group's global payment platform also offers a philanthropy voucher system which employers give their staff, allowing them to choose their donations.

Dublin-based founder Anna Kupka travelled with the large Enterprise Ireland trade delegation, led by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, to China earlier this month to launch ammado.com's Chinese-language site. The group has staff in Singapore, Bangladesh, Japan and Hong Kong.

"We've started talking to companies in Asia and it's been very positive. Singapore sees itself as a philanthropy hub and corporate social responsibility is an issue all over Asia," Kupka said.

"We are in active discussion with many large brands and banks who want to embrace our solution. In turbulent times like there, many companies don't feel like giving traditional Christmas corporate gifts and are thinking of sending Ammado gift vouchers instead."

Engineering group MCS began as a spinout from the University of Galway in 1983, when an academic wrote a piece of software code about how pipes behave in certain types of water.

Since then, MCS has expanded into a Galway-headquartered company with seven offices around the world and 200 employees in the big oil and gas hubs around the world: Aberdeen, Houston and Paris. Two years ago MCS opened in Perth, and Kuala Lumpur was a natural stop-off for the company.

The company provides subsea engineering solutions to the oil and gas industry, something in major demand in an oil-producing country such as Malaysia.

Gary Scoby, from Halifax in west Yorkshire, joined in January this year and is in charge of marketing and business development. He had previously worked as an oil and gas specialist at the UK High Commission.

"It's up to me to make sure we have all the ducks lined up in a row when we open a local engineering facility. It's about flexible pipe, rather than rigid pipe," he explained. "We wrote the code that everyone has to follow . . . My advice to people setting up is to talk to people - there's always a link."

He said companies like the oil producer Petronas were happy to welcome MCS once it showed it was prepared to invest in local knowledge, another useful pointer when it comes to winning over local partners.

On Monday: Is this Asia's century? - Innovation magazine