Location of the Iron and Steel Industry in Japan

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By means of applying the regional comparative cost analysis, one of the analytical methods in the location studies, for the 1960 situation in which the iron and steel industry of Japan had been put, there theoretically looms out a definite possibility to find out the best location for the forthcoming integrated works which would prove themselves to be advantageous for energy economy.In the first place, a standard scale plant capable of efficient operation is to be set out. Such a plant, as a unit, must be carried on at least in the scale of production capacity of two million or more metric tons of crude steel per year, from the point of view of modern technology. Only 12 sites are possible to be found in Japan, satisfying the prerequisit conditions for constructing such a standard plant. The conditions are considerable space of land inexpensibly obtainable, with solid layers to endure heavy mills with blast furnaces, a large amount of unsaline water available, and definit facilities available for large ore carriers.On the next step, it is necessary to decide the input and output coeficients of some factors for production, and the prices of transportation from the resources or to the markets and of the factors to be consumed for production at each sites, in order to account the regional differentials of costs between the chosen sites (as shown in Fig.3, 4, 6, and 9).The costs to compare regionally are calculated by the procedure, in which the prices of all the selected factors are multiplied along the coefficients (Fig.10). From the result having led like that, we know the best location of the industry at Hofu (in the Chugoku district), or at the reclaimed land by Nagoya, where a new plant has recently constructed in fact. This seems, on the location choice of the industry, to teach us the market orientation caused by the biggest difference on the cost of product transport between the sites in the selected factors.