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Which Companies Are Involved?
Between the early 1960s and the 1990s, Japan rapidly increased its consumption of imported wood-based products. This reflected the country's economic growth - and the choice of timber as preferred building material for much of Japan's (short lived) housing. Japan's traditional post-WW2 economy was based on "keiretsu", a system of vertically integrated industrial groups with cross shareholdings between group companies. The most influential ones included Fuyo, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo. The keiretsu system started to break down during the 1990s, partly as a consequence of imprudent lending and successful competition from independent enterprises which had expanded during the recent years of prosperity and did not have such unwieldy and opaque corporate structures. The trading arms of the large keiretsu, particularly Marubeni Corporation, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui Corporation, and Sumitomo Corporation, spearheaded (through direct investment) what was in effect a dramatic assault on forests in Southeast Asia, Canada and elsewhere. International criticism of Japan's impact on the forests and forest people of Southeast Asia (particularly in Sarawak) and elsewhere had become so acute and widespread during the early 1990s that these companies felt it politic to substantially reduce their overt investment in tropical forest exploitation. However the large general trading companies and their rather smaller counterparts which specialise in trade in wood-based products remain not only the most "up-stream" Japanese entities in the flow timber from forests abroad to consumption in Japan, but pivotal to the management of those flows. This section provides, for each of several leading Japanese enterprises whose businesses facilitate the trade, processing and consumption of wood-based products which derive from High Conservation Value forest: - details of their role,
- comments on their procurement policy,
- suggestions as to how they could refine their strategy both to obtain advantages over their competitors and meet customer expectations,
- names and addresses of executives and contact points to whom readers can send constructive messages, and
- a sample letter tailored to each enterprise.
It is by no means a comprehensive listing of all significant enterprises in the chain of supply of such products and is frequently being brought up to date.
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