Japanese business leaders said yesterday they were looking to Asia for growth and banking on Japan’s strength in technology to keep an emerging recovery going in the coming year.
“Expanding in Asia is going to drive growth,” Fujio Mitarai, chief executive of Japanese camera and equipment maker Canon Inc told reporters at an annual New Year’s gathering for business leaders.
The celebration at a Tokyo hotel was organized by corporate lobbies, including Keidanren, which Mitarai heads, and the Chambers of Commerce for Japan and Tokyo.
In the past, businesses in Japan mainly looked to the US to furnish growth.
That is changing as prospects dim for exports to the world’s biggest economy after the financial crisis. Growth is also tepid in Japan and Europe and executives have their eyes on the purchasing power of Asia’s growing middle class.
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who attended the party, said Japan couldn’t rely on the old-style growth policies and must create new businesses, such as health services and medicine.
“Japan can lead the world by focusing on technology and science,” he said.
Many companies are rapidly shaping strategies to woo consumers in emerging markets, developing products — and setting their prices lower — to cater to their needs.
Japan’s exports to Asia totaled ¥2.7 trillion (US$29 billion) in November — more than the ¥1.544 trillion to North America and Western Europe combined, the finance ministry said.
Yesterday, Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co showed concept models for a small vehicle for the Indian market.
Toyota, the world’s top automaker, said the vehicle would be produced starting late this year. Honda, Japan’s No. 2 automaker, said its offering would go on sale next year, and also be available in Thailand.
Such offerings are expected to be under ¥1 million, cheaper than models sold in Japan, the US and Europe.
One by one, the executives at the gathering said they were cautiously optimistic for a recovery led by Asian growth. They also boasted Japan’s technological prowess holds the key for success.
“There are so many strengths we can offer the world, especially in ecological technology. We need to get serious about pitching these strengths,” said Nissan Motor Co chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga, pointing to electric and hybrid vehicles not only from Nissan, but also from its Japanese rivals.
The Chinese market alone could make up as much as 40 percent of the profit that Honda rakes in for the fiscal year through March, major business daily the Nikkei reported.
Masayasu Toyohara, executive overseeing consumer electronics at Toshiba Corp, said the company was busy hiring engineers in China to develop washing machines and refrigerators that appeal to Chinese consumers.
Toshiba now controls only 1 percent of China’s home appliance market, but hopes to boost that to about 5 percent in three or four years, he said.
Pharmaceutical companies are also counting on China.
“Growth in China is absolutely certain,” Toichi Takenaka, who heads a federation of Japanese drug makers, said on the sidelines of the New Year’s gathering. “Growth in the pharmaceutical industry always parallels rise in people’s income.”
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