ABSTRACT
Extensive written and oral surveys by the IFO Institute in selected sectors and enterprises have confirmed that, compared with other industrial countries, access to the Japanese market is still difficult and costly. Generally speaking, access to the Japanese market is judged to be much more difficult by consumer goods manufacturers than by companies in the capital goods sector. Almost half of the firms polled think that the Japanese distribution system is a serious obstacle to exporters. End consumer prices for German products are said to be almost always substantially higher than for similar Japanese products, which greatly restricts any expansion of sales. The great majority of respondents stated that the end consumer prices of their products on the Japanese market were substantially higher than the prices of comparable Japanese products. The respondents were almost unanimous in stating that the end consumer prices of their goods were substantially above the prices of comparable or similar Japanese articles.
