The Hon Hai Group (鴻海), the world’s largest contract maker of electronics, will expand its focus on the domestic market by launching several major investment projects after the Lunar New Year holiday, group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) said yesterday.
Affected by slowing demand because of the world economic crisis, Gou said at a Lunar New Year-end party for employees that a 10 percent rise in group revenue last year to NT$2.4 trillion (US$74.8 billion) would represent a big gain.
In the coming year, the group will shift its focus on exports to expanding the local market, Gou said, adding that the group intends to recall senior Taiwanese executives stationed in China back home to lead the next phase of high-tech development.
Their return does not signal an intent to abandon the Chinese market, however, but rather to give the company’s Chinese employees more development opportunities, he said.
The Hon Hai chairman, who announced recently that he would continue to lead the company for the next 10 years, described the coming decade as a crucial period because the global industrial structure is changing rapidly.
He said he felt responsible to lead his colleagues in facing those challenges and creating a new era for the group.
Comparing the 35-year-old group to a 35-year-old man who should be full of vitality and drive, Gou said his priority over the next 10 years would be to pass on his experience and cultivate people capable of taking over the business group.
He said that Hon Hai would not only be a family enterprise run by his children, but any Hon Hai employee would have the opportunity to take over the group.
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