2016

Mr. Kazumi Totsuka: One of this community's most important themes is disaster prevention. In the event of a disaster, can we expect Minebea to share its plant area to support the needs of local residents?

Mr. Hirotaka Fujita: Minebea maintains a stock of food and water to prepare for earthquakes and other natural disasters. We have a certain amount of surplus to serve local residents. As a member of the community, we would like to help as much as we can during emergencies.

Mr. Tomio Kinpara: The other day, as Fukuroi City's Secretary of Disaster Prevention, I visited Kumamoto Prefecture to witness the impact of the recent earthquakes. The experience in Kumamoto reconfirmed for me the importance of cooperation with local residents and companies to face natural disasters, as municipalities cannot handle the aftermath alone. We have established a disaster response plan for Fukuroi City and we look forward to discussions with Minebea in order to ensure smooth communication in the event of an emergency.

Mr. Hirotaka Fujita: We also look forward to discussions with you. As a company, Minebea's first responsibility is to confirm and protect the safety of its employees. We are also prepared to support local residents as much as possible by offering our seminar hall and welfare annex building as temporary shelters and through other means.

Mr. Hideyuki Harada: Considering that 43% of your plant employees are residents of Fukuroi City, just taking in these residents would significantly lessen the burden on the city. We hope to have more detailed discussions with you about this.

Mr. Yasuhisa Tomita: Lastly, since we have this opportunity, I would like to discuss two points that are of interest to Minebea. The first issue pertains to children on waiting lists for daycare centers. At Minebea, we have many female engineers working at our plant, and a serious issue for many of them is a lack of childcare facilities when they return to work after childcare leave. We are eager to work with you on improving this situation. The second issue pertains to traffic and transportation facilities around the plant. There are roads without sidewalks, and areas which are not served by buses and other public transportation. We feel that these represent issues of safety and convenience for local residents, including our employees. We would be very grateful if you could look into these issues.

Mr. Hideyuki Harada: We understand. Thank you for sharing your opinion.

Mr. Hirotaka Fujita: There are things that we can do for each other and things that we cannot do. First, we need to share our opinions frankly and openly. None of these issues are easy to resolve, but we are eager to work on them together with you.