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High-speed Rail

Nita Ing's Decade of Determination

Nita Ing has overseen the completion of Taiwan’s first high-speed rail line, a project that brought her both fame and blame, as she stood her ground in a corporate and political world still dominated by men.

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Nita Ing's Decade of Determination

By Sara Wu
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 368 )

The 52-year-old Ing has spent roughly one fifth of her life so far on the high-speed railway project, Taiwan's first major infrastructure project built under a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model. Because of this mammoth project costing NT$480.6 billon, opinions about Ing are quite divided.

The new bullet train has dramatically changed people's notions of time and space, as shortened travel times – it takes just 90 minutes from the capital of Taipei in the north to the port city of Kaohsiung in the south – have brought the entire island within commuting distance. Hsia Chu-joe, a professor at the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning of National Taiwan University, believes that the high-speed railway will influence Taiwan's urban and rural landscape for the coming century.

In 1997, when the Kuomintang (KMT) was still in power, the Taiwan High Speed Rail consortium of five companies – Continental Engineering Corporation founded by Ing's father Glyn T.H. Ing, TECO Corp., Pacific Electric Wire and Cable Co. Ltd., the Evergreen Group, and the Fubon Group – won the bidding for the high-speed railway against a rival consortium led by the KMT-controlled China Development Holding Corp. under Liu Tai-ying.

Touching a Raw Political Nerve

In the presidential campaign in 2000, Ing touched a political hot potato when voicing clear support for Chen Shui-bian, the candidate for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who went on to narrowly win the presidency. Subsequently, as the railway was under construction, her reputation and popularity soared and plunged along with the president's. The high-speed railway could not have been completed without backing from the government, such as its helping hand in securing a syndicated NT$323.3 billion loan from 25 local banks in 2000 or raising NT$7.5 billion in funds from the Civil Aviation Development Foundation and the CTCI Foundation, which are both government-controlled. As a result, the High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC) and Ing as its chairwoman were under constant fire for what many saw as the government's undue involvement in a private project.

When asked whether in hindsight she feels that it was inappropriate to take sides in the 2000 presidential election, Ing has a straight answer: “I have never regretted anything, because what's done is done!”

Educated in the United States, Ing is a Westerner in her thinking, behavior, style of speech and her attitude toward life. She does her job in a down-to-earth way and, unlike the typical Chinese, is not guided by personal ties. Negotiating competitive pressure in the corporate world and interference from male-dominated political forces, Ing, as a rare female executive, has endured fame and blame over the past decade. She saw the high-speed railway project through, clearing away obstacles and overcoming setbacks on various fronts, enabling it to take up service at the beginning of this year, while also raising the standards for public infrastructure projects to an international level.

International Flair

The new train has brought Taiwan an international outlook and taste.

The high-speed railway project brought to Taiwan international teams of experts who had worked on Hong Kong's subway and airport projects. International standards had to be met throughout the project, from the awarding and executing of contracts, to engineering issues and railway station management. Contractors were required to show a high degree of self-initiative and set their own project milestones, while the Bureau of High Speed Rail made its payments in line with the contracts upon acceptance of the projects by the government. “The most difficult part of completing such a BOT project is the competency to award contracts and integrating the railway system,” notes Tseng Dar-jen, deputy director general of the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau, in recalling his own experiences with another huge engineering project, the construction of the Hsuehshan Tunnel that links Taipei and Yilan County.

In the very beginning Taiwan's contractors, construction firms, and even people inside Continental Engineering were not able to adapt to such stringent standards so that there were frequent rumors of internal strife. “But I personally felt that this was the only way to do it. From the stance of an investor and shareholder, we needed the project to be executed by a team with such experience and competency,” says Ing, who never wavered in her support of the team of experts and never compromised her standards.

Ing's leadership qualities lie in her ability to integrate and coordinate. “I promised to create an umbrella, and to allow all the experts to stand under this umbrella, free from interference. In the end I delivered on my promise,” Ing asserts.

Architect Kris Yao, head of Artech Inc., which designed the high-speed railway's Hsinchu Station, identifies with Ing's goal. “I had the wish to create a public building that would make the Taiwanese proud and stir people's hearts. During the construction process the budget always gave us a lot of pressure, but as long as we stayed within the budget, Ing whole-heartedly supported us,” Yao recalls. Yao feels it is quite a pity and often discouraging that despite Taiwan's economic prowess, only luxury homes and corporate headquarters in Taiwan emphasize taste and style, while public infrastructure remains uninspiring.

The striking Hsinchu Station design, which combines the lines of a semiconductor chip with the arched roof of a traditional Hakka house, earned Taiwan invitations to two highly competitive international architectural exhibitions, the International Architecture Exhibition at the 8th Venice Biennale in 2002 and the 1st Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in 2003. Stations are places of transit, giving travelers a feeling of insecurity and a fleeting sense of loneliness. Travelers in a railway station share the same feeling of being always together and forever apart.

Yao explains the idea behind his design thusly: “I wanted the station to convey a sense of security, a feeling of ‘holding people.'” As a local architect Yao understands Taiwan's local context and culture. But at the same time he also challenges himself, and challenges the standards of Taiwanese public infrastructure by using talent from around the world, such as foreign consultants on lighting, electromechanical systems, and railway stations.

Finally, the designs for the six new stations that THSRC built south of Taoyuan not only possess special features based on local elements, but are also in synch with the world's newest public transport projects – clean, bright, safe, with self-explanatory signage and routes.

Great Inner Strength

During the ten-year construction of the high-speed railway, Ing successively gave birth to two daughters and parted ways with the man who had been her partner for ten years. Given the pressures and challenges from the high-speed railway project, Ing's friends all know that she spends most of her time and energy on her job.

Ing's focus outside work is on spending time with her two daughters. Her extremely romantic streak has decreased over time, while her pragmatism and capability to play the CEO role have increased correspondingly.

Ing took on the heavy burden of the high-speed railway in mid-life, and people close to her sense her inner strength. “She has resolve and courage, which do not dissipate because of external conditions. She upholds her goals,” is how Yao describes Ing. When her friends witness the fierce attacks from her critics, Ing's friends feel that she is having a hard time. But when having lunch or dinner with her, they eventually find out that “things are really bad, but she is fine,” says Hsu Lu, CEO of the Chunghwa Telecom Foundation. “She has a fierce vitality. Her inner world is very stable,” Hsu adds.

When the high-speed railway started running in January this year, it was criticized for glitches in the booking system. During the Lunar New Year holiday travelers complained about inadequate service. But in the future the railway's challenges will not lie on the customer-service side, but on the financial front. Presently, THSRC has a capitalization of NT$105.1 billion, but is saddled with debt totaling NT$321.2 billion. Now that the railway is operating, THSRC has to allocate an estimated NT$12 billion per year for the repayment of principal and interest, meaning the company needs to repay an average of NT$32.87 million every day.

Over the past decade the THSRC team fought an uphill battle, overcoming massive challenges such as the bidding controversy, civil engineering and electromechanical projects, team integration, political pressures, and capital-raising difficulties.

From now on the managerial prowess of Ing and her entire team will be put to test. This will again be a massive new challenge.

In the following exclusive interview, Nita Ing recalls the decade of challenges behind Taiwan's bullet train.

Exclusive Interview with Nita Ing:


The Long, Hard Haul of High-speed Rail

Q: The biggest incident in 1999 was the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation's contract violation as it switched from the European Eurotrain system to the Japanese Shinkansen system. In 2004 THSRC had to pay NT$2.1 billion in compensation to the ditched Eurotrain consortium. Up to today, people raise doubts about Taiwan's bullet train, arguing it mixes together various things of different systems and specifications. What do you think about such statements?

Hybrid System? No Such Thing

A: I think that's actually the biggest misunderstanding about the high-speed railway. Basically, we did not change the train system over night. Worldwide there are only three countries that have developed their own high-speed train technology, namely Germany, France, and Japan. Japan's Shinkansen entered the international market last, while Germany and France formed the Eurotrain consortium, so you can only choose between these two systems. We spent more than two years on negotiations before deciding in the end to switch to the Japanese system. It was the board of directors' final decision, which means it was not made over night.

I feel that all this talk about Taiwan's bullet train being a hybrid system was deliberately created by certain companies for the sake of their own commercial interests. They created this impression to deal us a blow, because they did not get certain things in the (bidding) process. The specs for the railway's civil engineering projects are the same specs as in the contract that we signed with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in the very beginning. We first undertook the civil engineering projects and decided only later to use the Japanese system. The high-speed rail's core system including the coach bodies and the electromechanical systems inside are all from the Japanese system. There is no such thing as a hybrid system.

Q: Why did the board decide to switch to the Japanese system? Some say diplomatic reasons or political reasons were behind that decision.

A: There were no diplomatic reasons and no political reasons. Basically, the decision was based on commercial considerations. Many reasons cannot be explained to the media due to non-disclosure agreements. Factors that we considered include, of course, price, specifications, which things met our requirements and which didn't. The final choice was made based on overall commercial considerations.

Never-ending Financial Woes

Q: The closer the high-speed railway got to completion, the more capital-raising emerged as its biggest hurdle. In 2005 THSRC announced that the railway's opening would be delayed for one year, that the syndicated bank loan would also soon be used up, and that the company needed to raise new capital…

A: Not long after the project started the lack of capital constantly gave us great pressure. We faced many changes in the ten years during which the railway was built. During that decade there was not only political change, but also very big industrial changes including business-cycle dynamics.

We had quite a long period of economic slowdown. In the beginning of the high-speed railway project, when we formed the consortium and founded our company, Taiwan's economy was at a peak. From then on it took the road of steady decline. On top of that came political factors. All along we had to deal with a lot of external controversy. Basically, all the negative news caused us extreme difficulties raising capital, and not just in 2005 – this problem has been with us all the time.

Unfamiliar Government-Business Cooperation

Q: The high-speed railway has triggered massive controversy with one factor being competition among the political parties. How do you view this problem?

A: It was the government's policy to build the high-speed railway as a BOT project. When signing a BOT contract, the government plays a dual role. It is a project supervisor, but also a project partner. But the Taiwanese people are basically not familiar with such schemes.

When private sector companies cooperate with the government, all that people can think of is collusion between government and business, nothing else. As for the government, it also needs to learn how to serve as supervisor and as partner at the same time.

All along, the Bureau of High Speed Rail and our company did quite a good job playing our roles. In the very beginning things were somewhat distorted so that the outside world had of course certain misgivings. Political factors certainly played a very big role amid all this because the ruling party changed for the first time in Taiwan (in 2000) and I had supported Chen Shui-bian (in the presidential campaign).

All these factors kept smoldering like a fire, continuing to exert enormous influence during the construction process. As far as I am concerned, it was a learning process. It was a learning process for Taiwan's entire business world, for all the people who play a role in it.

Q: This incident has two levels. If a chairperson voices his or her personal political stance, it could affect people's attitude toward the company. In hindsight, do you think it was a good thing to make your stance known so clearly, given that you are a company chairwoman?

A: I have never regretted anything, because what's done is done! The only problem is that as a new democracy our society is probably not yet able to really accept such behavior.

We all think that we're very liberal, but in fact we aren't able to accept that kind of liberty. People can't differentiate between individuals and companies, and they are very direct in their retaliation. Actually, our society can't quite accept it if an executive takes a stance by supporting a certain political party or a certain person.

Q: Many industries such as the finance industry, the high-speed rail and public construction projects are directly linked to the government. What do you think should be the limits of proper behavior or the right manner for interaction between corporations and the government?

A: I feel that everyone is still trying to figure that out. Since corporations and the government are parts of our entire society, we also need to see the expectations and entrenched prejudices society has regarding their roles. In traditional Chinese thinking businesspeople can basically not be trusted. We must take a look at society in its entirety, not just at interaction between the government and business. Society does not have any trust in corporations. Actually we are quite polarized, and of course the media play a role in this.

Q: I saw some data from the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which said that the number of people taking domestic flights has almost halved over the past ten years, from 18 million to 9.5 million. These people are actually the main force behind the high-speed rail. Or did the exodus of the middle class abroad cause market demand to shrink? How do you see the high-speed rail operating in the future?

A: It's not correct to say that the aviation market is gone because the high-speed railway is up and running. The domestic aviation market was gone already several years ago. In the past it was mainly the Taipei-Kaohsiung route. Taichung was not a main destination. Passengers disappeared because many industries relocated abroad. But you must not forget that there will be new demand, from connecting the science parks in Tainan, Taichung and Hsinchu. But this was not the driving force of the aviation market in the first place. Basic passenger volumes have not declined at all – it's only that the destinations and goals are not the same. Before, we did not have full work-free weekends, and the current marketing model for the high-speed railway will change. The market exists, and in the future demand stimulation will create other markets.

Operating Environment – The Big Challenge

Q: The high-speed rail needs to transport between 8 million and 10 million passengers per year to return a reasonable profit. You just mentioned that for now, there are business travelers and weekend travelers. For business travelers the ticket prices might be still okay, but aren't prices a bit high for leisure travelers, so that it will be difficult to stimulate demand?

A: Putting it simply, if we include everything – operating costs, interest, depreciation – we need to have 60 trains per day with a passenger load factor of 70% to break even.

Q: Do you think it will be easy to achieve this target?

A: It's a matter of marketing. One thing is that the market as such is there. The other thing is how to increase the number of scheduled trains. This again is another instance of marketing integration. Actually, I'm quite confident after having seen the most recent daily figures. The high-speed rail is indeed a very convenient means of transport. We have a model for calculating figures. I definitely have confidence in operating the high-speed rail system in Taiwan. Of course, you will run into different bottlenecks or difficulties when operating a business, and you need to make efforts to open up new markets, but these are achievable goals.

Q: Since the Lunar New Year up to today there has been a flood of complaints. Why?

A: In the very beginning these complaints were about the ticketing system. There were some problems with the system, and we spent a lot of time solving them. It's just like with a teething infant – there will be a period of pain when a new transportation system takes up operation, including the maintenance of stations, equipment, trains, and the service system. No matter how much you train, once you go online things are different, but it will get better by the day.

Q: Everyone is mightily impressed by the design for the six new train stations. What were your requirements, and what did you imagine?

A: We actually demanded simplicity. In a public space you don't want to have a lot of complicated stuff, because people are passing through these places every day and humans are per se complicated enough. Public spaces must be bright, safe, and have good signage and well-defined routes. The simpler you want things, the more difficult the job will be.

Basically the members of our team of experts all had certain ideas. Probably we were influenced by the airport in Hong Kong. All over the world new transportation facilities are being designed around the themes of cleanliness and straight lines.

THSRC Doesn't Equal Nita Ing

Q: The high-speed railway has an epochal position in Taiwan's transportation history. How do you see yourself linked to the high-speed railway and its historic position?

A: THSRC should not be equated with Nita Ing. It's not fair toward the company, and it's not right either. The high-speed railway was not my idea. It had been conceived much earlier. We were only a group that entered a bid for the project and fortunately won it. Then we executed and completed it. When I hear such statements, my whole body stiffens. I'm not ready to die yet, and I'm also not worthy of such a reputation.

What is significant is that opinions differ and that there will be different interpretations over time. Some people think there shouldn't be a high-speed railway. For me it means that I had this opportunity to work with this group of people.

Q: What role did your leadership play during the ten-year construction process for the high-speed railway?

A: I was a coordinator who enabled different people in the same boat to survive.

In the beginning we invited many foreign experts to participate in this project, but everybody doubted it would be possible to execute it in line with international standards, given that Taiwan was a new democracy with lawmakers who run family enterprises. I told them, I will serve as an umbrella. I will be the umbrella for you. No matter what happens outside, you will be on the inside. Sometimes when the rain was heavier, the umbrella got holes and I needed someone else to repair them. But in the end I still delivered on my promise.

(Interview by Sara Wu and Jau-yi Wu)

Translated from the Chinese by Susanne Ganz


Chinese Version: 高鐵十年 心不隨境轉

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