Dr. Mohammad Bassnawi

NO matter how many natural resources a country has, the human resource is the most important, especially the well-trained and well-qualified. This type of resource is priceless and is viewed as the real resource of a country. It is strange that we have rich human resources that can help accomplish a gigantic industrial revolution, especially if we train them well, yet we have not trained them and preferred to recruit workers from outside. Apparently, we do not have a strategy that helps us provide Saudi workers doing jobs that are on demand at the labor market. The General Statistics Authority's reports show that unemployment has reached 12.8 %.

Any country that fails to develop its human resources, will definitely fail in achieving any industrial development no matter how hard it tries. Japan suffers from scarcity of natural resources. In order to provide its residents with honorable living, it decided to adopt a colonist policy in an attempt to compensate for this scarcity. However, the imperial policy brought nothing but destruction to Japan in World War II because Japan’s interests conflicted with the interests of superpowers. Japan was left with no choice but to invest in its human resources in order to achieve rapid industrial development to catch up with advanced countries.

At the beginning, Japan suffered from major economic setbacks such as reduction of energy and a sharp decrease in export. Between 1950 and 1975, Japan economy grew 13.9% because it chose to invest in human resources. The average income of a Japanese was 1:14 to that of an American in 1950; in other words, the average income of an American person was 14 times of that of his Japanese counterpart. The Japanese average income improved and reached 1:6 in 1960. Ten years later, the Japanese average income reached 1:2.5 of the American average. In a matter of 20 years, Japan became the second largest superpower.

Japan has an area of 378,000 square kilometers, which is one sixth of the Kingdom’s area. It does not have natural resources except earthquakes. The Kingdom, on the other hand, has oil as a major resource estimated at 267 billion barrels, the second largest reserve following Venezuela. It also has gold, iron and other resources. Japan entered world wars and was bombed with nuclear bomb while the Kingdom did not participate in the world wars. Earthquakes, volcanoes and storms destroyed Japan several times. Nevertheless, Japan is the third largest economic superpower. It has made these achievements through investing in human resources. We still have not discovered this treasure called human resources. We are among the top 20 countries with the largest economy because of oil and not anything else.

Japan’s economy ranks the third at national income of $4.901 trillion. Japan ranks first globally in electronics industry and second country with the largest financial assets at $14.6 trillion, equal to the same assets of Canada, UK and Germany combined. It has 57 companies registered in the list of the largest countries in the world. Its spending on scientific research and technology exceeds $150 billion a year and has the largest number of technical engineers.

Soichiro Honda, the owner of giant auto company “Honda”, visited one of the Honda factories. He extended his hand to a worker, but the worker pulled back his hand from the handshake because it was covered in grease. Honda held the man’s hand and shook it saying “I love grease”. This is the great Japan.

The Japanese are Orientalist people like us and build their civilization from zero without compromising on their traditional and cultural values. We have not so far succeeded in achieving the sought-after progress and development like Japan.