Word: tradings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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From the facade of the normally austere 17-story Ministry of International Trade and Industry in the heart of Tokyo dangled a huge white banner last week. In bold calligraphy it exhorted passersby: LET US SHAKE HANDS WITH NATIONS OF THE WORLD BY IMPORTING MORE GOODS. In his 13th-floor office, Hiroshi Sugiyama, head of MITI's Bureau of Industrial Policies, echoed the spirit of the banner. "To Japan," he said, "the economic priority is not kyoso ((competition)) but kyocho ((conciliation)) with the rest of the world...
...rallying cry has long been "Export or Die" ? Does this mean that Japan, the world's most fearsome economic competitor, is ready to roll down its sleeves and relax while its rivals carve up its slice of the global market? Not exactly. But Japan, under pressure to reduce a trade surplus that reached $83 billion last year, is indeed trying to soothe foreign critics by curbing exports and opening its markets to imported goods...
...trade turnaround was a long time coming, but there are finally some signs of change. Between 1982 and 1986, the value of Japanese exports jumped from $138 billion to $211 billion, partly because of the yen's 50% rise against the dollar. In 1986 alone, Japan's trade surplus rose 79% from the previous year. But last spring it began to come down. By July the surplus was nearly 15% lower than the same month the year before. Meanwhile imports, spurred by growing domestic demand for ever cheaper foreign goods, were up 30% in August, compared with that month...
...generation of supercomputers that will allow users to give orders in English or Japanese rather than in a computer language. Such systems could be used as office secretaries, teachers' aides, automatic nursing systems or translators. Another field in which the Japanese are coming on strong is finance. Their trade surplus, combined with a high personal-savings rate, has provided the Japanese with a huge pool of cash to spread around the world. That has given enormous muscle to Japan's financial institutions. Four of the world's top securities firms and seven of the ten largest commercial banks...
While the mighty exporters of Japan and Western Europe draw most of the attention, about one-quarter of the U.S. trade deficit is the work of a pesky group of second-tier nations known as the newly industrialized countries. Once dismissed as marginal producers of chintzy clothes and toys, the NICs, which include South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil, have gone upscale, producing everything from VCRs and computers to cars and commuter planes. By importing technology and deploying armies of low-paid but often well-educated workers, the NICs have been able to undercut competitors' prices...