Speaking at a news conference on his first day as company president, Etsuhiko Shoyama also said Hitachi aims to achieve a return on equity of eight per cent in about four years, and added that anything beyond that time frame was ``unacceptable.''

The company's eight per cent target will form the basis of a new management plan that Hitachi intends to present in greater detail in six months. Shoyama said, ``My mission as president is to transform Hitachi into a high-profit business.''

Hitachi announced in September a wide-reaching restructuring plan designed to turn its business around. Among other measures, Hitachi pledged to centralize its decision-making process, freeze its capital-spending plans, reshuffle its business units and trim 4,000 jobs inthe current year.

Shoyama said part of the new management plan involves using capital more efficiently. Hitachi also will focus on developing its information-technology-services business, aiming to increase sales in the sector by one trillion yen to 1.5 trillion yen ($8.41 billion to $12.62 billion) by the year 2003.

The company will evaluate all of its businesses on the basis of profitability and growth potential, and will withdraw from those that are uncompetitive, Shoyama said.

Shoyama's comments come amid expectations that Hitachi will post an enormous loss for the fiscal year that ended Wednesday, its first since the end of World War II. Hitachi said in February that its group net loss for the year would total 375 billion yen on sales of 7.76 trillion yen. It also said it expected a group pretax loss of 290 billion yen. On a parent basis, the company projected a pretax loss of 120 billion yen and a net loss of 190 billion yen on sales of 3.72 trillion yen for the year.

Asked about restructuringand plans for staff cuts, Shoyama said Hitachi isn't setting any goals for reducing its work force. On a parent basis, the number of Hitachi employees was cut 4,000 to 67,000 in the year just ended March 31, and this number is expected to fall to 60,500 by March 2000, through early retirement and transfers to other companies.

Hitachi's aim of making a profit for the fiscal year ending March 2000 is based on an expected recovery in earnings for the second half of the fiscal year. The company may still post a loss in the first half, Shoyama said.

``While we have been strengthening our restructuring efforts and cutting personnel and fixed costs, the first half of the fiscal year will still be difficult. We will recover in the second half and make a profit,'' Shoyama said.

Hitachi's semiconductor business is also expected to recover in the second half of the year.