chemical companies and trading houses for risk-taking, technical support, and sales of their products.<sup>20</sup> It is necessary to distinguish between cases in which weaving houses transact directly with chemical companies and cases in which weaving houses transact with trading houses or wholesalers." When weaving houses transact directly with chemical companies, the process is called "maker chop" in Japanese, which means the products are under the control of the chemical companies. When weaving houses transact with trading houses or local wholesalers, the process is called "unbra," meaning non-brand products.' "Maker chop" products are given the brand names of the large national chemical companies.<sup>3</sup> These firms are heavily involved in the marketing of their products, both textiles and final goods. Only weaving houses with a reputation for sophisticated weaving skills are invited to be members of production networks under chemical companies. The weaving fees under "maker chop" contracts are generally h.gher than those under "unbra" contracts. Chemical companies have been nurturing keiretsu weaving houses and have introduced a series of new materials to the market in an attempt to improve competitiveness.

The textiles produced under "unbra" contracts are not national brands. Since trading houses and wholesalers purchase yam from chemical companies, the material they use is not the most advanced. The weaving houses in this production network are relatively small and have less technological skill in dealing with new materials than weaving houses under "maker chop" contracts.

20 lntemal documents, Fukul and Ishikawa -. All 33 frms we interviewed made this kind of contract either with chemical companies or with trading houses. In fact, 66% of the firms we interviewed answered that 1 00% of their products were produced under fee contracts. For the remainder, 10 to 30% of their pr". ucts are sold to third parties (through trading houses) with the risk taken by weaving houses. This is quite different from, say, the wool product industry, where weaving houses are more independent.

> 2 'The term 'trading houses' here means large trading companies (sogo shosha) such as C.ltoh and Marubeni, while the term 'wholesalers" means local trading companies. It is not necessary to distinguish between the two for this discussion.

22There are some differences between Fukui and Ishikawa. In Ishikawa them are several large local wholesalers, so "unbra" is more common than in Fuktui. Since local wholesalers rere very influential in Ishikawa, they orgar'ze the local weaving houses under their control. Thus national trading houses and chemical companies have difficulty gaining direct access to these weaving houses. The local wholesalers purchase yam from several chemical companies so that they do not depend heavily on one paridcular company. National trading houses such as C.ltoh and Marubeni are more influential in dt Fkui area, where they have established their own production networks. Large chemical companies have also established their own production network in Fukui by inviting weaving houses with high technical skills to be members of their production networks.

z'The leading chemical companies indude Toray, Teijin and Asahikassi, an of whch are clssified as largescale corporations.

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