ABSTRACT
Figures 8.9 and 8.10 focus on the performance and fortunes of selected sectors of Japanese industry since the 1930s. Between 1935 and the early 1990s the population of Japan almost doubled, a trend to be taken into account in interpreting the data in these diagrams. The decline in the production of silk and cotton textiles (see Figure 8.9) reflects to some extent the competition from China and other Asian countries, as does more recently the decline in the output of manmade fibres. The great expansion of production of cement, pig-iron and aluminium between 1950 and the late 1970s (see Figure 8.10) reflects the importance to Japan of having a heavy industrial base. All three sectors are large users of energy. For this reason the first stage of smelting of aluminium ores was dropped in the 1980s. Further expansion of the iron and steel, and cement, industries has been curtailed.
