ABSTRACT
Japanese companies have been rather slow in becoming truly international. The move towards internationalisation has been led by YKK, Sony and Honda, and others are trying to follow their lead by investing heavily overseas. The joint venture, called ARNA, built a body assembly plant near Naples and started building bodies-in-white of a version of the Nissan Cherry. The completed bodies are taken to the nearby Alfasud plant in Pomigliano where they are mated with Alfa Romeo engines and all the innards. Nissan sells 2,000 Santanas a month through its own dealerships in Japan on behalf of Volkswagen. This is mainly to counter the criticism on the part of European and US car manufacturers that the Japanese market is so difficult to penetrate. In April 1985 Nissan Motor Manufacturing signed a single union agreement with the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers which is unprecedented in the British motor industry.
