Fortune magazine yesterday named Canon president Fujio Mitarai as its Asian business leader of the year, hailing him for turning around a Japanese company where others have sought foreign bosses.
Mitarai, who takes over in May as head of the Japan Business Federation, the country's top industry lobby, "may be the best Japanese CEO in a decade," Fortune's Asia editor Clay Chandler said.
"His willingness to make tough choices early and independently is the difference between success at Canon and the mess at Sony," he wrote.
"The turnaround may not have been as dramatic as Nissan's, but changes at that company came at the hands of a Western CEO and only after foreign investors gained management control," Chandler said.
"Mitarai turned Canon around before being forced to by outsiders," he added.
Once debt-ridden Canon has grown to Japan's largest maker of digital cameras and office automation equipment, widely regarded as one of the companies leading Japan's economic recovery.
The 70-year-old Mitarai, who joined Canon at 26 and has spent his entire career there, is known as an advocate of the classic Japanese company approach, as opposed to the vertical-style "American" management.
Nissan, by contrast, recovered from the brink of oblivion in 1999 to profit under Carlos Ghosn, a Brazilian-born Frenchman of Lebanese descent who is now CEO at France's Renault, which controls the company.
Last year Sony, the global electronics maker, entrusted Howard Stringer, a Welsh-born former television journalist in the US, to be its new chief in a bid to restore its dynamism.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
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