ABSTRACT
Reductions in inventory levels were a major part of most local retrenchment strategies, especially among production units habituated to running at capacity levels. Unfortunately, this unwillingness to hold “dead stock” soon also filtered down to their customers as wholesalers and retailing outlets began to feel the squeeze. To cope with the deterioration in market conditions a number of local firms announced their plans to turn to “just-in-time” inventory systems, especially those units parented by large Japanese conglomerates where such a system was internally well established. Others claimed to be shifting their focus to the export market in their avoidance of hard-pushed domestic customers, a move rapidly extinguished as the crisis spread throughout the region and beyond.
