Diversity — not specialisation — is the advantage.
When I was invited to speak at a conference in Bonn some years ago, my host insisted that I stay with him, rather than in the conference accommodation. I expected to find myself in a suburb of Bonn, but instead we drove to a tiny village with just 5,000 inhabitants 130km away.
The bonus was that this was July 4, on which date each year a local Philharmonic group put on an open-air concert on the banks of an nearby extinct volcano’s caldera lake. The whole town was there for the event, and my host introduced me to a lovely old couple sitting on a park bench.
As we walked away, he explained that they ran the major factory in the village. I asked what they produced, expecting some processed rural produce.
“Satellites,” he replied.
Satellites. In a town of 5,000 people. That experience, more than any other, conveyed to me the gap between the industrial strength of Germany and what passed for a manufacturing sector in Australia.
