This text is the summary of a presentation given to the Asia Pacific Technology Seminar at the Anglo-Japanese Daiwa Foundation Japan House, London, on 9 September 1998. Merits of Industrial Co-operation with Japan There has been much coverage in the media recently of economic problems in Asia. It might therefore be useful to let readers have some views on the current situation in Japan. The key message is that British exporters should not be put off by what they have heard about economic problems.
Japan remains a huge market.
It has been rapidly deregulated, particularly from the early 1990s, and it is no longer the 'protectionist' closed market it once was. It is true that Japan is, in the aftermath of the collapse of the 'bubble economy' in the early 1990s, facing serious short-term problems and there has been a depressed atmosphere in Japanese industries and among Japanese consumers. This is particularly the case since November 1997 when several Japanese financial institutions collapsed. It happened during the months of the 'Asian financial crisis' and naturally added to the psychologically depressive atmosphere in the market worldwide. None of these characteristics, however, can be observed in the Japanese industries, and thus the 'crisis' in Japan and those in the rest of the Asian countries are quite different.