New-York tribune., 1921-02-22
Manchulria Offers
Opportunities for
American Exporter
5000, 100000 To Be Spent
by Railroad Interests
There ON Extensions i'm
Course of Next Five Years

Favorable opportunities for Aneri
can trade in Manchuria are pointed out
i'll a report to the Department of
Commerce from Trade Commissioner
Lynn W Meekins, at Peking.
In spite of Japan's special advan-
tages IN Manchuria, he says there is
an excellent chance for the marketing
of many lines of American goods, which
need only proper distribution and
sales methods. About 80 per cent of
the population and the large majority
of the merchants are Japanese, who
generally favor American products.
The South Manchuria Railway Com
pany, the largest Individual purchaser
of American products, proposes to
spend more than S2oo,0oO,0Oo gold upon
improvements and extensions of us
enterprises within the next FIVE years.
This means a ready market for Amer
lean engineering supplies. which can
&c sold direct or through the large
Japanese trading companies.
although Manchuria's political
problems are complicated by many cen
flicting clements, its currency is badly
dlsorganized and single nation has
obtained large share of it's trade, it
is IN many respects more attractive
market than China proper" says Mr.
Meekins. "Its fertile soil will enable
it to become more and raore important
as producer of the worlds food It
is fairly we'll equipped with transporta-
ton facilities, having nearly doub the
railway mileage a 100 square miles of
territory that the rest of China has
It is served by two of the best ports
in the Far East-Dairen and Vladi-
vostok. With less than twentieth
of the population of China, Manchuria's
direct foreign trade in 1919 was about
80 pc. cent as great as that of the
remainder of the republic.
Call goods carried L Da;ren hy sea
are exempted from import duty If
they are for consumption within the
japanese leased territory, and produce
raised in, as we'll as merchandise manu-
factured from produce raised in this
territory is exempted from export duty
at Dairen. What this amounts to is a
free port with an area of 1900 square
miles. The direct trade between
Dairen and the United States in 1919
exceeded $38,000,000, of which imports
comprised two-thirds and exports one
third. Dairen's total foreign trade in
that year was just short of $270,000,-
900, so that the share of the United
States was ID per cent
"The large Japanese import trade in
Manchuria, worth more than $65, 900
in 1919, has been built up by the wide
and quick distribution of great va
riety of low-priced goods, comparing
unfavorably in quality with American
and European manufactures Consul
General Pontius, at Mukden, estimated
that 85 per cent of the price goods and
90 per cent of the miscellaneous cot
ton goods in daily use among the Chi
nese in Manchuria are of Japanese ori-
gin, and SO are most of the sundry
articles entering into the trade Jap
anese statesmen travel throughout the
interior, surveying the market and So
Letting orders, and japanese manufac-
turers are afforded special facilities by
banks and transportation companies.
"The Chinese, however, are good
judges of value, and now that their
slowly increasing purchasing power is
enabling them TO buy merchandise of q
better grade they are paying more at
tention to quality, a fact which means
can manufacturer"