HIDA Journal 2014 AUTUMN No.5

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13No. 5 AUTUMN 2014Japanese companies. HIDA has also held personal exchanges over a long time with the Japan-Thailand Economic Cooperation Society (JTECS), which is a counterpart organization to TPA on the Japanese side. As for TNI, to date numerous students have studied things like Japanese corporate culture by taking part in HIDA training, and dispatched experts have provided TNI faculty and students with technical guidance in the automotive sector.As TNI was established with TPA as its parent body, can you tell us about your involvement in this?From the very beginning the founding members of TPA had the goal of wanting to set up a college at some point. But back in those days Thailand only had national universities, with the government’s thinking being that universities were something that the state should be in charge of, and could not be entrusted to the private sector. Afterwards, as a result of Thailand’s development it became unable to supply the requisite number of human resources through its national universities alone, and so the doors to establishing these were thrown open to the private sector. Our plan to establish a college took shape around 2004, and we set to work making preparations to open our school with the cooperation of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Bangkok, JETRO, HIDA, and other related Japanese institutions in the local region. At the time, the opinion was often voiced by Japanese industries stationed in Thailand that the country had a dearth of practical engineers suited for manufacturing sites, and as such the TPA’s objective of providing human resources capable of meeting the needs of Thai industry was in line with the needs of these Japanese industries. Having said that, for TPA at the time establishing the college was a major decision that would determine its fate. After TNI was established we struggled with things like student recruitment, and running TNI was more difficult than when I was at TPA. But by working on it together with like-minded colleagues we were able to achieve success.What sorts of merits are there with an education at TNI?Our majors and curriculum layout should be mentioned as merits. Under our basic concept of fostering and turning out human resources capable of meeting the needs of companies and human resources that can play key roles in Japanese companies in the future, we regard expertise, language proficiency, and organizational abilities (the ability to adapt to an organization and to improve and reform it) as major factors in this. Moreover, we have established departments related to automobiles, machinery, and information, which are areas that continue to experience notable expansion among the industries in Thailand. We also differ from other universities in that we emphasize “production management” in relation to “business management,” and we have designed courses intensively so that their content can be put to use immediately in the practical affairs of companies in each sector.Our next merit is our Japanese language education, which is a requirement for every student. I believe that no other college in Thailand puts as much effort into Japanese language education as TNI does. Being able to communicate in Japanese can substantially enhance the effectiveness of technology transfers from Japanese people.We have provided internships at roughly 400 Japanese companies stationed in Thailand through the cooperation of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Bangkok. This is a program that we can provide precisely because our college maintains wide-ranging ties with Japanese companies, and for TNI this has also led to the great benefit of further strengthening our ties with industry. Starting in their student days our students are able to learn about Japanese companies’ technologies and ways of thinking, and so as a result they are able to put what they have learned into practice immediately upon finding employment with a Japanese company after graduating.From your standpoint as the president of TNI, how do you rate HIDA’s activities and programs?The human resource development programs that HIDA has implemented to date have had a major impact in terms of technology transfers to local companies in Thailand via TNI and its graduates. I also feel that taking part in its training and other programs has contributed enormously to expanding networks and cooperative relations between countries. I also brought this point up at the 2010 HIDA Performance Evaluation Committee, which I attended as a committee member.Recently there has been an increase in cases of TNI graduates who found employment at Japanese companies taking part in HIDA’s training programs in Japan by means of being dispatched from the companies employing them. Making use of HIDA’s training program enables them to attend to practical training at their company’s head office in Japan based on their understanding of Japanese culture and the Japanese language. As such, this can substantially bring down barriers for companies when it comes to training local employees.What sort of expectations does TNI have of HIDA for the future? For the future, TNI would like to cooperate and coordinate with HIDA more closely than ever before.One specific idea I have for a joint project would be to harness HIDA’s know-how in Japanese language education for industrial human resources in other countries that it has accumulated over many years to create HIDA business Japanese standards, for example. How does that sound? Many TNI graduates find employment at Japanese companies, so this would make it possible to create more highly effective standards as a joint research project with TNI.Additionally, while the training programs in Japan that HIDA has carried out to date have been extremely effective, “third-country training” carried out in cooperation with suitable local institutions in other places besides Japan would also be effective from the perspectives of cost and transferring technologies that are optimally suited to the local region. I feel that TNI would be able to provide assistance in a variety of ways in this area in Thailand. One conceivable example would be to invite managers and engineers from countries like Myanmar and Cambodia, which have seen continued economic liberalization and development in recent years, to Thailand and provide them with training in specific skills and management techniques based at TNI.When the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) begins in 2015 the movement of people will be liberalized and the numbers of people coming to Thailand from other Asian countries will most likely rise still higher. Thai people themselves also set out for not only neighboring countries within the Mekong region, but to countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, and so it is estimated that their opportunities to work in other local regions will vastly increase. Furthermore, the trend towards an international division of labor like that typified by the automobile industry will continue to become more and more pronounced. I would certainly like to see HIDA put its efforts into fostering international human resources who are capable of playing an active role in other countries amidst such a changing environment. This should have advantages for not only the countries of ASEAN, but for Japan as well. This is because increasing the number of international human resources in each country will expand the market for Japanese companies while also making it easier for them to diversify and optimize their production bases. I believe that the range of HIDA’s programs and activities will only continue to expand larger and larger in the future, and I am hoping that they will only develop further.Thank you very much.

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