ABSTRACT
The Japanese industrial sector usually responds quickly to changes in the world economy. As far as possible, the home market is satisfied, while special attention focuses on sectors turning out products likely to be suitable for export in given periods. Since Japan has to import large amounts of primary products from such countries as Saudi Arabia and Australia, which take only small quantities of Japanese exports, it has to maintain a favourable balance of trade with both North America and the EU and with as many developing countries as possible. The newly industrialising countries of East and Southeast Asia increasingly expand sectors of manufacturing that compete with Japan, the whole of the population of South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong having been in competition for more than two decades, the large city populations of Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia more recently. Already some of the coastal cities of China are shaping up to becoming future miniature Japans. It is easier to trace the way these places have followed the path of Japan than to see the future path of Japan itself, especially if there is another sharp rise in world oil (and natural gas) prices and if North America and the EU make it more difficult to export Japanese-manufactured goods to them.
