Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Wong MNC Center Founding Executive Director, gives featured speech at SEA the Future 2025 (Thailand)

In late February, Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Founding Executive Director of the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations (“Wong MNC Center”) gave a featured speech at 3rd International Conference in Southeast Asia on the Future of Maritime Technology & Use of the Sea 2025 (“SEA the Future 2025”) held in Pattaya, Thailand as part of the conference section entitled “Maritime Management and Transportation.”  His speech, entitled “Chinese Port Progress Propellants and Problems: Lessons from Chinese Involved Ports in Four Global Regions,” profited from completed Wong MNC Center research projects on Chinese overseas ports in Europe, Latin America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.  During his presentation, Dr. Blanchard discussed where Chinese overseas ports have sailed, ran aground, or sunk.  In addition, he identified a variety of factors that propel port progress as well as a variety of drivers that hinder it.  He concluded his presentation by offering a number of recommendations for businesspeople and policymakers that built upon Wong MNC Center case study research as well as these studies’ unpacking of critical causal factors.  Aside from making a featured speech, the Conference Organizers asked Dr. Blanchard to chair the first half of the aforementioned section.