The Construction Industry in Japan

Abstract

Imagine owning a construction company in a country slightly smaller than the state of California, where there are 515,999 other licensed contractors vying for work. That equates to about 3½ contractors for every square mile! Now suppose that 15 of these 516,000 builders are among the 100 largest international construction companies, with combined annual sales volumes exceeding $54 billion, and they are all competing fiercely for business in this same small geographic area. This happens to be the picture of the construction industry in Japan and, as one can imagine, even in a country with a burgeoning industrial base and a gigantic trade surplus to spur on government investment in domestic construction projects, the need to maintain and increase yearly revenues must create tremendous pressures on these giant contractors to seek new work everywhere in the world. A look at the Japanese construction industry and its worldwide activities ought to be viewed through this perspective.