President's 2016 New Year Message

January 05, 2016

Let's ride the winds of change and soar to new heights
I hope that 2016 will be a wonderful year filled with hope, a year in which we will build further on the momentum of last year's accomplishments. In November, with the maiden flight of the MRJ (Mitsubishi Regional Jet), our passenger jet under development, we were able to demonstrate the comprehensive capabilities that are our foremost strength. The MRJ brilliantly exemplifies how, through outstanding teamwork, the MHI Group is creating new value through the meshing of our technological and engineering strengths. With the support of everyone in the Group and the capabilities of everyone both within and outside the Group, transcending national boundaries, the MRJ has been realized. This is an accomplishment we should all be proud of.

Last year marked the start of our new "2015 Medium-Term Business Plan," and like the MRJ, the new plan got off to a flying start. Both the MRJ and the new Business Plan constitute major milestones, and as we continue forward we must now prepare firmly for the great challenges that await us ahead.

2016 is a year for "acceleration." With ever-greater vigor, the MHI Group will further expand both its business scale and its scope of operations. More opportunities than ever before now stand before us, and we are in a prime position to move ahead of our competitors. Today, the winds of change are blowing. Let's ride those winds and, applying our strengths, accelerate our pace of global growth.

By deepening our ties with customers and regions, we can contribute to the development of global society
In accelerating our global growth, the key component will be our ability to integrate the strengths of everyone in the Group and the technologies the MHI Group has cultivated through the years, and mesh them with the needs of our customers and the specific issues that will arise. In the case of the MRJ, for example, the development and manufacture of the aircraft in itself constitutes an important achievement; but going forward, we will face further challenges not only in terms of aircraft delivery, but also in creating a new global customer support structure to provide maintenance services worldwide. Achieving that structure will be possible only when we profoundly understand and respect the concerns of the many people and organizations involved, and society as a whole, and actively work together as a partner that is widely trusted.

In this way, by pooling our strengths we can bring economic benefit to people all over the world and make positive contributions to nations and regions everywhere. Above all, by sharing the challenges at hand and the desire to resolve them, we can deepen our ties as a partner; and, together with the many local communities we come to know firsthand, I am confident that the MHI Group will be able to achieve sustained growth, enhance our enterprise value, and thereby make positive contributions to global development.

Let's raise the level we expect of the Group, and of ourselves
As we have grown and developed through the years, the MHI Group has on numerous occasions resolved issues and difficulties immediately at hand thanks to the strengths and teamwork of all Group members. As we now start a new year, I would like for everyone in the Group to set new goals for themselves - goals one level higher than ever before. By having a clear sense of purpose, continuously strengthening and improving your professional and technological capabilities, and pursuing ever-higher levels both for you and your team, let's all strive together to produce outstanding results again this year that will invite the world's praise and admiration.

2015 was a year of turbulence and upheavals, politically and economically, all around the world. And yet, even amid those winds of adversity the MHI Group held high the corporate image we aim for; and without fearing changes, we faced the challenges and difficulties before us and successfully made important achievements in many business areas. Everyone in the Group is a bearer of change. Let us all be proud of the efforts we have made and the results we have produced; and let those achievements drive us forward so that, together, in 2016 we will accelerate the attainment of the targets of our 2015 Business Plan and make this a wonderful year, even better than ever before.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. press release