Message from the President

I would first like to express my sincere condolences to all the victims of the recent Great East Japan Earthquake. At Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (YMC), we will continue to extend whatever assistance we can to help accelerate the recovery. Regarding the electricity supply problems caused by the earthquake, we have long been committed to saving electricity and energy conservation. In addition, we have resolved to endorse and cooperate in the policy framed by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) to shift non-manufacturing days to weekdays as a counter-measure to deal with the expected gap between electricity supply and demand during the summer months.
Once again, it is the time of the year for publishing our CSR report. Looking at the social developments surrounding corporate social responsibility (CSR), with the release of ISO 26000 (the international standard on social responsibility) globally in 2010, more attention than ever before will be directed to the societal roles played by companies. At Yamaha Motor, we will push ahead as a united group to meet these expectations.

One of the management philosophies or directions under our new 2010 management structure was to "make the company simpler and easier to understand." With this in mind, we proceeded to systemize Yamaha Motor's management principles and policies and to reinforce substance. As part of this process, we reorganized our CSR-related policies aimed at realizing one of our management principles, namely "fulfilling our social responsibility globally." We did this by taking our "approach to stakeholders," which we had previously regarded as our CSR approach, and established it as part of our Basic Policies of CSR. To this we consolidated our other policies where aims and objectives that overlapped. We then placed these Basic Policies of CSR at the top of our fundamental policies on par with our Basic Policies of Internal Control and we clearly positioned this as a guideline for the Yamaha Motor group in our business activities. At the same time, we adopted an organizational structure under which the roles of the CSR Planning Division have been fulfilled in developing the foundations of CSR for Yamaha Motor. Now the Corporate Planning Division involved in all lines of our business will promote CSR with a greater sense of speed and reliability.
As a consequence of establishing these policies and making changes to our CSR organizational structure, all employees will share our approach to CSR, and we will achieve a working environment where individual employees can put CSR into practice in their own work. By doing so, I believe we will be able to fulfill our social responsibility through our business activities more than ever before.
At Yamaha Motor, we recognize our social responsibility in conducting business in nations and regions around the globe, and we will continue to contribute to the development of a sustainable society as “an excellent engineering, manufacturing and marketing enterprise with a prominent presence in the global market.”

For Yamaha Motor, 2010 was a year for making steady advances in the rebuilding of our management foundation in line with our medium-term management plan culminating in 2012. Of the various efforts and initiatives of 2010, we have run special features in this Report on four examples where the growth strategy of our medium-term management plan coincides with the Yamaha Motor group’s approach to CSR: “Pursuit of New Mobility” through activities to promote electric-powered motorcycles, “Human Resources Development” in cooperation with group companies in each country, “Riding Safety Promotion Activities” in emerging markets, and “50 Years in the Marine Industry” which have continued to take into account the regional communities and environment of each country. I sincerely hope that this Report will serve to build stronger relationships of trust with our stakeholders and society at large, and I look forward to hearing your unreserved opinions about it.