CEMENT PLANT LOCATION IN JAPAN

Abstract

Some studies on cement plant location in Japan were conducted by geograhers and economists. But those were on the basis of the Weberian location theory, which assumes markets to be perfect, one price ruling throughout each of them. Or, otherwise expressed, transport costs and other costs involved in movement within a market are assumed to be zero, and the market treated as one-point. In the early years of the cement industry, when the uses for the portland cement were limited to some large cities, these analyses were adequate and correct. As the demand increased and expanded, the networks of supply areas have stretched and extended over almost the entire country of Japan. Weberian theory has not been sufficient to determine the location of cement plants. Losch's theory is a pioneering first attempt to determine the spatial arrangemet of economic activity. This provides a set of equations displaying the location system. This also asks what the distribution of a producing place will be under postulation of continuous demand on a homogeneous plain. That answer can be achieved by analyzing the possible shapes, and possible sizes of market-areas. In this paper the location of the recent cement plants in Japan will be analyzed basically on the ground of the analysis of market-areas. 1) The first cement plant in Japan was constructed at Fukagawa, Tokyo in 1892. In the beginning this plant was managed directly by the government, but later it was sold to a private concern, the original of the present Nihon Cement Co. LTD. Every cement plant that has been established since then, has been controlled by a private concern. But the cement plant location was not determind through economic consideration until about 1887. After that time most cement plants work their own quarries and have been found to be established in certain localities especially selected for their proximity to rich limestone and coal deposits which constitute the chief raw material and a large part of production co st for cement manufacturing. Hence one third of all 47 cements have concentrated in the northern part of Kyushu which abounds in rich deposits of limestone and coal. 2) As the Japaese cement industry progressed, the 3 main companies, namely Nihon, Onoda and Iwakicement industry Co. LTD. have monopolized the cement production. These three companies are operating 26 plants and their production amounts to 48 percent of the overall total. 3) The change of the maritime transportation situation, the improduction facilties and engineering technique in the cement industry, and the extension of the cement demand over the regional areas of the country have brought about a great change in locational conditions for the industry. That is, since many Japanese ships were damaged during the Pacific War, the cost of maritime transportaion has become so high compared with land carriage. The adaptation of long economical kilns, Lepol kilns and air quenching coolers have brought down the unit consumption of coal. Whereas heretofore the major consumers of cement were the urban areas, the present situation is that the regional areas embracing the farms and mountains are also becoming big consumers and the difference in the volume of consumption between them is gradually dwindling. In prewar days the selection of sites for the erection of cement plants was made chiefly on their proximity to raw material sources which did not always correspond to the areas of actual consumption and distribution. After the War, however, the construction of new plants (11 plants after the War) and expansion work are attracted to the market-areas which are rather closely connected with the raw material sources, and have a tendency of dispersion. Except from the spatial aspect of monopolitic competition, such the dispersion of cement plants is thus no longer comprehensive.