JAPAN OPENS THE WINDOW

Abstract

A chemicals analyst in Tokyo recalls a recent visit to a large Japanese e chemical company when the director of investor relations told him: this down. Here are six businesses, just write this down for me. Take that to your corporate finance department and try to sell those for us. These days, some of the plants owned by Japanese chemical companies face such bleak prospects that ifs impossible to even give them away, says the analyst, Nicholas Smith with Jardine Fleming, Tokyo. But the Japanese market is far from unattractive. According to European Chemical Industry Council data, Japan had the world's second largest national market for chemicals in 1996, after the U.S. And buyers of chemicals in Japan are exceptionally demanding, meaning that companies that succeed here learn a lot in the process. Moreover, Japanese chemical companies have developed numerous new products and processes. For several reasons, Japanese chemical companies dominate their home market. ...