Around 1993, I got to spend 3 weeks travelling Japan as part of...

Around 1993, I got to spend 3 weeks travelling Japan as part of a University Exchange program with a Sister Engineering college in Tokyo, I'd not been outside Australia for any 'overseas' trips prior to this. Despite living in Victoria this even included Fiji, New Zealand, even Tasmania. The closest to overseas travel was Phillip Island a few times as the Grandparents of a mate I grew up with had bought a holiday house there when it was mostly undeveloped agricultural land - but there is a bridge connecting it to the mainland so it doesn't count as overseas.

The Japanese trip piqued an early interest in SE Asia as there were many elements of the 3 week trip which I can remember well despite it being over 30 years ago - particularly the ones off the tourist trail memories being a sister engineering college sponsored trip. Highlights were a visit to Mt Fuji ふじさん & staying at a Ryokan りょかん rather than a Hoteru ほてる - the place had been there for a very long time - was fascinated with the established, sustainable fish farm & the tiered land agriculture which both must have taken decades if not longer to develop. We were billeted with Japanese families so got to live (to a degree) as Japanese students do for a couple of weeks - navigating the Tokyo subways, stand sleeping on trains, karaoke bars (& other bars - we were students), Japanese restaurants which students could afford. Aside from the must visit (Tokyo, Roppongi district, Hiroshima, Shukkeien garden, Shinkansen, Kyoto-Nara, Nijo Castle) one of the more vivid memories was visiting a Japanese Robotics factory (remember this was 1992) & being fascinated with not only the hi-tech manufacturing technology but also how the company worked so well with their employees (they loved working for the company & all the Engineering students (& teachers for that matter did too) were jealous). Maybe much like a SpaceX or Tesla employee may feel about companies at the cutting edge of tech.

Around 1997 I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to construct & hang around for commissioning of the Nghe An Tate & Lyle Sugar Mill in Quy Hop province, Vietnam. A very different experience to Japan, as the sugar mill was being built about 8 hours by road from Hanoi in a very rural area which had not seen many Western visitors - there had been a foreign (Russian) tin mine which had left a bit of a red river legacy in the town where we stayed, but Australians, Brits were a bit of a novelty. That said, it was still a great project to work on as an expat supervisor despite there being significant cultural differences & a language barrier. Memories of Hanoi were that it was not really well developed yet as a Western tourist destination at that stage.

Fast forward a few years (including time as a robotics/PLC tech at Ford - proof that visit to Japan had a lasting impact on career direction) & I found myself back in Vietnam at the Pha Lai power station project, this time an hour out of Hanoi - one of the routes on the way to Ha Long Bay if anyone has visited North Vietnam. My contract was only going to be for one month, but I was keen to visit the country again so jumped at the chance. Immediate impression landing & staying in Hanoi for the first couple of days was how much the city had changed to accommodate tourists - you could visit almost anywhere in Hanoi & survive with little knowledge of the Vietnamese language (not the case in 1997) & mobile phones were everywhere. Noting it was early days in what turned out to be Hanoi's rapid economic development - I can remember early on being invited to visit the first brand new 'supermarket' in the city during this time.

This one month contract for me turned into 6 months, then 2 years landing in a completely different role than what I started over there as. Even now I (and many others) look back on that project as probably the best we've ever worked on. It was such a literal melting pot of cultures -
Vietnam - construction & commissioning teams from Lilama 10 & Schmidt.
South Korea - Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co (HDEC) construction & engineering
USA - Stone & Webster Enginering Co (Engineering/controls/integration) & General Electric (Turbine Alternators)
UK - Babcock (was a JV Mitsui (Japan) & Babcock (UK) - Downshot boiler, Voith Cooling water & boiler feed pumps
Australia - Barclay Mowlem (now Laing o'Rourke) Materials Handling
Germany - Schade bucket wheel reclaimers, stacker/reclaimer
Canada - Marsulex Flue Gas Desulphurization
Italy - Coal train tippler (can't recall the company name)
India - Water Treatment Facility Demin & Waste water/ash plant (Also can't remember the co)
Japan - Yokogawa instrumentation & Digital Control System
What happened with the above was an in-country component for every supply contract above by vendor representatives - Vietnamese, South Koreans, Americans, Aussies, Brits, Irish & Scots, Germans, Italians, Canadians, Japanese, Indians along with expats from Thailand, Phillipines, Malaysia & China.

As mentioned previously, in the past 12 months I've caught up with over a half a dozen people who were on the project mentioned above. Despite the gap of a quarter of a century for many, it was like yesterday for myself & I'm sure for those whom I caught up with.

There have been a lot of projects between this one 25 odd years ago & now & one thing which I know is to put together such a diverse consortium of suppliers & co-ordinate in order to establish the supply chains from all of those countries in equipment supply & personnel into Vietnam at a time when normalisation of economic relations had only really just started (particularly from the US), would have been tremendously challenging - just getting all the gear into the country & transiting up to Pha Lai, the logistics alone without equipment 'falling off the back of trucks' well this deserves respect. And to have this project stand out for so many as one of the better, if not best projects they've worked on with so many different foreign nationals working in country, well that in itself IMO was unbelievably successful.

In terms of difficult to get to FID, make this a reality - this project was right up there & although I knew at the time, it has only been recently that a real understanding if not appreciation of what the company & country did to make this baseload power station a success contributing to the economic development of North Vietnam in ways hard to understate, was Sumitomo.

And the backing of the project was through the Japanese International Cooperation Agency
https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/12031514_02.pdf
https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/12150876_02.pdf

On October 1, 2008, the new Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was established as a result of a merger of JICA with the overseas economic cooperation operations of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

If they are talking it would be the perfect outcome in terms of development partners for TIVAN, knowing just this little bit of history & context of Sumitomo & JBIC/JICA & the positive impact this project had on so many lives - it would exceed best case scenario for this company.
I couldn't script it any better if I tried.