Land of the Rising Export

For a nation reduced by the war to 60% of its territory, while its population swelled from 72 million to 89 million people, the Japanese economy has been bursting at the seams. In eleven years Japan has doubled its prewar industrial output, far outdistanced its peak wartime production years. Japan's phenomenal recovery has been due largely 1) U.S. Government procurement orders, and 2) soaring exports, notably of cheap textiles and heavy machinery. Last week Japan's biggest industrial manufacturer. Hitachi Ltd., landed two fat new orders from India and Formosa for $830,000 worth of hydroelectric equipment and transformers.

In six years, Japan, helped by 350 aid agreements with the U.S., has raised its world export position from 17th to eighth place. By the end of Japan's fiscal year next March, exports, already 50% ahead of last year in dollar .areas, are expected to hit $2.5 billion. Textiles still make up the bulk, but heavy machinery constitutes 31% of the total.

The export drive is hampered by Japan's limited railroad and trucking facilities. A million and a half tons of goods are now piled up at railroad sidings waiting shipment to docks. To break such bottlenecks and broaden its export base, Japan will import 1,300,000 tons of steel.

To spur exports, 37 major heavy-industry companies formed the Japan Technical Cooperation Co., dispatched technical experts to India and Indonesia to explore markets for power and oil equipment, signed technical cooperation contracts with Viet Nam and the Burmese Defense Department. Some industrial exporters, however, feel that if nationalist-minded Southeast Asian countries restrict Japanese trade, or if Western European and Soviet competition gets too tough, Japan would turn to Red China to keep its exports rolling. Already Japanese businessmen are clamoring to exchange ships, trucks, bulldozers, locomotives, generators and other machinery with Red China for iron ore and coal.

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