Message from the President Jan.2008

I’d like to extend a heartfelt Happy New Year to all of you. My wish is that 2008 will be another prosperous year for all Meitec employees.

This year marks the first year of implementation of the Meitec Group’s new three-year management plan, Real Global Vision 21. The five-year management plan, Global Vision 21, which the Group has promoted together with its employees from 2003, centered around three keywords, the three Gs-- Group, Global and Growing --meaning that the Meitec Group as a whole aims to become a corporate group that grows globally. It calls for collaboration between employees and management to create a corporate structure enabling each employee to grow along with the Company in the face of increasingly dramatic changes in global social and economic conditions that will take place in the future. Underlying the five-year plan is Meitec’s management philosophy, “Mutual Growth and Prosperity,” and this philosophy is inherited by Real Global Vision 21.

One of the questions I continually ask myself, as the Company’s president, is “What’s the ideal relationship between a company and its employees?” I constantly consider this issue in light of various events that take place both inside and outside the Company. One answer I invariably come up with is “A company where employees can grow.” Another way to describe this would be “Employees play the central roles, with the Company serving as a stage.” In other words, employees don’t depend for their existence on the Company; rather, the Company can only exist by means of its employees. Now, it may seem as if I’ve begun the new year with a Zen riddle, but what I’m really saying is that a good company is one that attracts good employees. By drawing in high-caliber people, a company increases its attractiveness, which in turn enables it to pull in still more good workers. As this positive cycle is repeated, I believe, a company acquires strength and becomes able to cope with change. And it’s this way of thinking that lies behind the message I communicate continually to you: “I don’t want you to think you’re employed by the Company. Use the Company to achieve your self-growth.” The biggest asset of the Meitec Group is none other than its employees, so it follows naturally that if each employee grows, then the Company grows spontaneously. Each employee’s growth results in the Company’s growth, and I believe that as the Company grows it can in turn offer a larger number of employees greater opportunities for growth.

So then, what kind of employees do I consider “good” employees? They’re ones who aspire to self-growth: who seek to gain sufficient competence to accomplish tomorrow what’s beyond their capability today; who want to gain the capability to overcome in the future what they can’t overcome today; who aspire to becoming the kind of person they envision. In short, they’re people who have dreams and ambitions for the future and work actively to achieve them, while pursuing mutual growth with their colleagues. They’re people who succeed in winning cooperation from colleagues and accomplishing what they couldn’t accomplish alone. They’re people who work to expand their circle of friends who’ll support each other even in difficult or painful times. I believe that the Meitec Group should become a company that does its best not only to provide such people with opportunities to fulfill their dreams and aspirations, but also to support each employee.

Every one of you plays the central role in your own life, and what’s more, you serve as your own screenwriter and producer. I’m sure that each of you, in fact, makes an unconscious decision each day about what script you want to write, how you produce it and how you act it out. You won’t always be able to select the cast members, but it’s possible to produce a fantastic drama if you can get to perform with people you trust. And each time you play a drama, I’m sure you get a firsthand realization that you’ve grown. Under Global Vision 21, the Company has forged ahead with setting up the stage in collaboration with its employees, beginning the prologue of the drama. With Real Global Vision 21, we’re seeking to expand the stage still further and invite more like-minded people to participate in the show. The title of the drama, of course, is “The Story of Professional Engineers.”