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Photo: Simon Katzer, Hauke Dressler
ko sasaki is president of MAn diesel &
Turbo Japan. in July 2011, he visited
the sOs Children’s Village in Fukuoka.
> A CALL TO ...
Ko Sasaki
MAN Forum: Hello, Mr. Sasaki. The events in
Fukushima earlier this year shocked the entire
world. How are you doing today?
Ko Sasaki: We are gradually recovering from the
catastrophe. In economic terms, things are looking
up, and progress is being made with the shutdown
of the Fukushima I atomic power station. At the
same time, the nuclear contamination of agricultural
products is alarming. The government needs
to take faster action to deal with this.
What is the mood like in the country?
Fairly optimistic. People’s willingness to help is astonishing.
A great many volunteers, including
many young people in particular, have come forward
to help with the work of reconstruction. There
is clear determination to recover from the catastrophe
and make a positive step forward.
You recently visited the SOS Children’s Village in
Fukuoka. Does it house many earthquake victims?
Fukuoka is too far from the affected area—about
1,100 kilometers. So SOS Children’s Villages want to
open a new place in Sendai. A generous donation
made by MAN SE should help to make this possible.
How could the work of the SOS Children’s
Village be described?
It is important for us to raise awareness and acceptance
levels for the Children’s Villages. The Children’s
Village in Fukuoka was only set up in 2010.
Until that time, there were few institutions of this
kind in Japan. Orphaned children are mostly sent to
children’s homes—foster families hardly exist at all.
There is growing interest, however. Since the Children’s
Village in Fukuoka opened a year ago, it has
already had 1,800 visitors.
What impressed you the most on your
recent visit?
It made me aware of what a lot of ground we have
to make up in this area. I was very impressed by
how passionate the staff members of the Children’s
Village feel about their work.
> ExpAnsiOn
New MAN site in Munich
> Hybrid TruCk TriAL
Customer tests in Munich
forum 03/2011 09
Easy access: the new MAn offices are
well connected with the public transport
network and the freeway.
since the beginning of 2011, the MAn Group has hired well over
1,000 additional staff members at locations in Munich. Thus, the
company is now opening a new business location, moving into
spacious offices in the parkstadt-schwabing complex located in
the north of the city. beginning in the fall of 2011, the 20,600
square meters of office space has housed employees of the sales
subsidiary MAn Truck & bus AG and MAn Finance international,
as well as some corporate departments of MAn sE.
MAN Truck & Bus is currently putting its new hybrid truck to the test in
Munich. In cooperation with wholesaler Arndt GmbH Co. KG, two MAN
TGL 12.220 Hybrid distribution trucks are used. The test operation is
intended to provide key empirical values that MAN can use for the
further optimization of its hybrid truck. Stefan Kerschl, project leader at
MAN Truck & Bus, comments: “Reliability, economy and environmental
friendliness are the crucial factors for hybrid drives if they are going to
succeed on the market. Using them in delivery vehicles will give us
valuable performance data under real conditions.” MAN Truck & Bus
expects the TGL Hybrid to cut fuel costs by as much as 15 percent.