President Ma Ying-jeou on the morning of June 17 at the Presidential Office met with international management expert Mr. Kenichi Ohmae and Mrs. Ohmae. The president, on behalf of the government and people of the ROC (Taiwan), extended a warm welcome and gratitude to the guests for visiting Taiwan.
President Ma noted that Mr. Ohmae is renowned for his expertise in management forecasts and trends. He said that many people on Taiwan look upon Mr. Ohmae's ideas as an important conceptual basis for many theories, such as the M-style society. The president said that Taiwan is presently facing a new situation. He said he hopes to hear further recommendations made by Mr. Ohmae for the government and the corporate sector here with regards to politics, economics, international affairs and cross-strait relations.
President Ma said that 15 years ago when Mr. Ohmae worked at McKinsey & Company, he offered the suggestion that Taiwan establish itself as an Asia-Pacific operations center. The president said that at that time, he served as justice minister whose work did not have any direct relationship to economics, but he felt that acting upon Mr. Ohmae's recommendation would be a good move. He said he sensed that creating Taiwan into an Asia-Pacific operations center would be an important step for Taiwan. Unfortunately, Taiwan was unable to realize this objective for a number of reasons. The president said that even looking back at the recommendation today, he still feels that it is a suggestion worth considering.
President Ma cited an example of a foreign company that invested in Taiwan. He noted that Federal Express came to Taiwan over a decade ago and was prepared to make Taiwan its regional operations hub. It set up operations at both the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Kaohsiung's Hsiaokang International Airport. Regrettably, in July of last year, it closed its cargo operations business at Hsiaokang Airport as the volume of business there had declined by one-third. At the time, the president said that he and then vice presidential candidate Vincent C. Siew engaged in discussions with Federal Express. The executives from Federal Express told them that the company's motivation in setting up operations at Hsiaokang Airport originated from Mr. Ohmae's thoughts over a decade earlier that Taiwan should establish itself as a regional operations center. However, 12 years later, this initiative had yet to bear fruit. Business volume had fallen and therefore Federal Express decided to close its operations at the airport. President Ma said that during the meeting with Federal Express executives, he told them that if he was elected president, he would immediately put Taiwan back on the right track and enable multinational companies to take advantage of Taiwan's favorable geographic location.
Mr. Ohmae thanked President Ma for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with him. He also shared with the president some of his experiences with regards to trend and management forecasting. He said he hopes that amid global competition, Taiwan is able to better address its problems and create opportunities.
Mr. and Mrs. Ohmae were accompanied to the Presidential Office by CommonWealth Magazine Chairwoman Diane Ying. Also in attendance was National Security Council Advisor Philip Yang.