Politics & Power Quote by Hassanal Bolkiah

A small, wealthy state doesn’t talk about “foreign expertise” unless it’s also talking about sovereignty. Hassanal Bolkiah’s line is the language of controlled openness: an invitation to outsiders framed as a national self-interest project, not a concession. The key phrase is “in the long term,” a temporal cushion that asks citizens (and elites) to tolerate short-term discomfort - foreign managers, imported standards, unfamiliar scrutiny - for a future payoff. It’s modernization rhetoric with the sharp edges sanded down.

The subtext sits inside “establish its business culture and environment faster.” Culture isn’t usually something you “establish” on a deadline; institutions are. By treating business culture as an installable system, the quote positions international “best practice” as a kind of ready-made operating system that can be imported, reducing the messy trial-and-error that can expose patronage networks, regulatory weakness, or capacity gaps. “Faster” is doing political work: speed becomes a virtue that justifies exceptional measures and bypasses domestic bottlenecks.

Context matters: Brunei’s hydrocarbon wealth has long underwritten stability, but it also creates a diversification problem. Opening to expertise signals seriousness to investors and multinationals who read “best practice” as code for predictable rules, enforceable contracts, compliance, and professional bureaucracy. Coming from a ruler whose legitimacy rests on continuity, the rhetoric is calibrated: modernize the economy without democratizing the state. Outsiders are welcome as technicians, not as authors of the political order.