President Ma Ying-jeou met with NEC Corp. President Nobuhiro Endo and his accompanying delegation at the Presidential Office on the afternoon of August 6 and applauded the company's contribution to Taiwan's economic development.
President Ma first congratulated Mr. Endo for taking the helm at NEC in April of this year. He said that 18 years ago when he served in the Executive Yuan's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission he made a fact-finding visit to Japan and during that trip learned that about 10% of NEC's employees each day receive on-the-job training. President Ma said that this made a deep impression on him and highlighted the fact that NEC's success did not happen by chance.
The president commented that NEC's policies mirror those of Taiwan in the area of industrial development, so there is enormous room for the two sides to engage in cooperation. He pointed to WiMAX as an example, saying that NEC has been quite aggressive in this field. In addition, the ROC government has identified green energy and electric vehicles as key areas of development, and the president is confident that NEC can play an important role in these industries as well.
President Ma explained that Taiwan and mainland China signed an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) on June 29. In the future, tariffs on items exported from Taiwan to mainland China can be eliminated. While the content of the agreement at present covers only 16% of Taiwan's exports to the mainland, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will continue to negotiate further agreements. In particular, recent research from Japan has indicated that the success rate of Japanese firms investing in mainland China on their own is about 68%. However, investing jointly with Taiwan would raise the success rate to 78%. This demonstrates the importance of cooperation between Japan and Taiwan in jointly developing markets in mainland China.
President Ma praised NEC's participation in public service activities here and especially noted a virtual tree planting activity initiated by NEC. When people participate in the activity online, NEC provides funding to plant trees. To date, over 7,300 trees have been planted under the program. The president said during his presidential campaign he promoted plans to reforest areas in the lowlands, hoping to have 60,000 hectares planted within eight years. He said he deeply appreciates NEC joining in this effort.
Mr. Endo and his delegation were accompanied to the Presidential Office in the afternoon by Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Hwang Jung-chiou to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was National Security Council Advisor Thomas Yuan.