Message from the President Dec.2012

New Year period from year-end, I am having more opportunities to visit our customers.
And what I felt from talking with the management of our customers was that, although the uncertainties in the outlook of economy still continue to increase, they have strong willingness for continue to investment in technological development as possible.

During this year, just as we were to recovering from the Lehman Shock, we were hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake. And subsequent disruption in supply chains and the power shortage had significant impact on the production activities of the Japanese manufacturers. Additionally, the rapid appreciation of the yen continued, and now, the problems from flood in Thailand is continuing. Also, the financial crisis in Europe brought on dark clouds over the future of global economy. Even just by listing up these issues, we can reaffirm harshness of situations and the severity of difficulties surrounding the Japanese manufacturers. But from strong willingness of Japanese manufacturers to continue on their investment in technological investment, I can feel the underlying strength of Japanese manufacturers.

And, our customers have told me that, in continuing their investment on technological development with risks, outside resources like Meitec is absolutely necessary. This means that, in order to win in the fierce competition in advanced technology development, they can not slowdown in their development activities. Therefore, as immediate force, our customer is requiring the Meitec engineers to possess equivalent or even better abilities than customer’s engineers.

I think this is symbolized in a comment made by one of the director in charge of engineering at our customer. It was "We will continue to impose restraint on our cost. But unless continuing our investment on the technological development, there is no future for us. Therefore we will require the Meitec engineer to possess same value of force as we require our own engineer to have.”