The contribution of electronics industry $ ^{18} $ , with regard to the Japanese internal manufacturing sector, can be easily gathered by some major indicators as those showed in table 3.2. The shares on manufacturing production and export for 1988 were respectively 30.6% and 34.5%, while in 1989, electronics industry accounted for 8.3% of total Japanese manufacturing facilities, 17.5% of employment and 22.2% of the accumulated stock of FDI. These values are self-explaining to the high dependency of Japanese economy on electronics, although a more proper understanding of the strategic importance of this industry should also take into account the effects in terms of industrial linkages, technological development generation and stimulus to innovation and entrepreneurship, as indicated in section 2.

The evolution of the Japanese electronics industry during the 1980s is presented in table 3.3. As a general tendency for internal demand, production and export, the figures show a dramatic shift from consumer to industrial goods, due principally to the increased sophistication of the Japanese market and the production structure. In particular, the total value of production and export for consumer goods experienced an absolute net decrease in the last five years: production of consumer goods decreased from 4,912 billion Yen in 1985, to 4,436 billion Yen in 1990, while exports were reduced from 3,805 billion Yen in 1985 to 2,618 billion Yen in 1990.

The trend of domestic demand shows that consumer goods' share decreased from 18.9% of the total in 1981 to less than 13% in 1990, while the industrial goods' one increased from 46.9% to 57.2% during the same period. Also the structure of production experienced a similar shift, as consumer goods' share decreased from 33.9% in 1981 to 18.5% in 1990 and that of industrial goods increased from 35.3% in 1981 to 47.4% in 1990. This change reflects the saturation of Japanese demand for consumer goods and the rapid increase of sophistication for Japanese electronics, marked by a fast technological development especially in the production of computers, telecommunication equipment and advanced microelectronics $ ^{19} $ .

Trade figures clearly show the shifting away of the Japanese electronics industry from the traditional model to a more articulated structure influenced by the evolution of overseas manufacturing activity, with particular regard to the APR. Following the relocation of the more labor-intensive productions, export share of consumer goods from Japan decreased from 45.8% in 1981 to less than 24% in 1990. At the same time, in response to the increased production of industrial goods, export share in this sub-sector grew from 23.7% to 31.5%.

In industrial electronics goods, the relatively smaller value of export compared to that of production is due to the initial focusing of Japanese firms on the domestic market and to the higher sophistication of the internal demand with respect to the foreign one. However, the growth of parts' share in trade figures is showing that the intensity of intra-industry trade in electronics is increasing and that the structure of the international division of labour is changing towards a higher degree of interdependence.

Finally, the trend of imports does not show any particular change in terms of relative shares of the three sub-sectors but is marked by a considerable increase in the absolute values, which have doubled in the last five years of the decade $ ^{20} $ . The sum of total imports is however still very low with respect to that of exports (only one fifth in 1990), and this problem of trade balance is causing Japan to face persistent trade frictions.