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Let me start by thanking all our stakeholders for their continued support of Itoham.
First, I would like to express my deepest sympathy for all those people who lost loved ones in the Great East Japan Earthquake last year. My heart also goes out to everyone in the region who is still suffering. While hoping for the quickest possible recovery in the region, we will continue to do our utmost to support everyone afflicted.
Turning to the global economy, the European debt crisis, which had been festering since Lehman’s fall in 2008, came to the surface in Greece and triggered a critical situation that could cause a worldwide depression.
In the U.S., efforts to tackle unfavorable financial and economic conditions have resulted in the Japanese yen appreciating. The current historical high level of the yen is creating mounting pressure for structural reforms in Japan.
Although China, other emerging countries and various Asian countries have driven the global economy for the last two to three years, there are some signs of a slowdown in the economic development of these nations.
In Japan, a number of difficult issues abound, including contamination from radioactive materials, the easing of regulations on imported beef, and Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP). In these highly uncertain times, the Japanese market will contract as the population ages. And whether we like it or not, we will face a borderless era as competition intensifies not only among Japanese companies but with Asian and other foreign companies in Japan and overseas.
In January last year, Itoham announced the Itoham Group Medium-term Management Plan (CNV2015), which lays out our basic management policies for the next five years around the vision of the Itoham Group becoming the most-trusted manufacturer of processed meat in Asia. To accomplish this, we are carrying out various measures to implement our basic strategies: structural reforms and growth strategies. As regards structural reforms, we are realigning Group companies to further augment our cost competitiveness and produce a stronger, leaner corporate structure. We have started to build an organization that can hold its own in Japan and overseas. With growth strategies in Japan, we aim to raise the profitability of national brand products, by enhancing marketing capabilities accompanying customer-orientated product development, and introducing new products with high added-value. Moreover, we plan to expand sales in the growth-promising ready-to-eat meals and restaurant markets by strengthening our organizational and product development capabilities. We will aim to create and expand a fresh meat value chain centered on expansion of our production activities, and effective business negotiations and discussions with customers.
With our overseas strategies, we have moved to expand sales in the strongly growing Asian market. Thai-based Itoham Betagro Foods Co., Ltd. is making efforts to strengthen export operations to Japan. Furthermore, we are seeking to expand business activities in the fast-growing Chinese market through our participation last year in a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation, Yonekyu Corp. and China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO), China’s largest state-owned foodstuffs corporation. The Itoham Group is providing its accumulated and advanced technology and expertise in the fresh meat and processed food businesses in this alliance.
Both our structural reforms and growth strategies have been unfolding as planned since last year, and tangible results are appearing. Looking ahead, with an end in sight to the structural reforms, we will gradually shift our focus to growth strategies.
2012 is a key year for the Itoham Group as regards achieving the goals of CNV2015. It is important this year that we firm up our foundations for making a big leap forward. To achieve our goals, Itoham must continue to be a company that can satisfy customers with its products and services. I sincerely ask for your continued and even greater support. |
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President
Mamoru Horio
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