Japan Increasing Sales To Communist Nations

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32216, 7 February 1970, Page 6

Japan Increasing Sales To Communist Nations

(N.Z P A.-Reuter—Copyright) TOKYO. Japan is rapidly stepping up sales of its products to Communist nations as big orders pour in, especially from China and the Soviet Union.

Sales of textiles, chemicals, steel and construction machinery accounted for nearly 90 per cent of Japan’s total exports to Communist nations in the January to September period, worth $457m. This was an increase of 33 per cent over the same period last year. Japanese business seeks to increase trade with the Soviet Union by helping Russian projects to develop copper, natural gas, petroleum, forestry, electrical power and harbour facilities in Siberia. Japan’s exports to the! Soviet Union alone went up by more than 67 per cent in the nine-month period, according to official figures published in Tokyo. Clothing, machinery and steel showed the biggest increases. Two large orders for more than 1000 bulldozers and motor graders have recently been signed by Japanese companies for the Soviet Union's Siberian forestry development.

Altogether, Japan will supply sllBm worth of equipment under the forest development agreement and S26m worth of consumer goods in exchange for Siberian timber. Japan’s exports to China showed a modest 15 per cent increase in the first nine months of the year compared with the same period last year.

However, trade sources said transactions at China’s recent Canton fair were expected to approach a record Sl34m far above the sll6m contracted at the previous fair. Chinese inquiries mainly concerned chemical products, machinery and steel, the sources said. The Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry believes that improved relations between Japan and East Europe account largely for the 30.3 per cent growth in exports to six East European countries during the first nine months of 1969, compared with the same period last year. Early this year, a top-level

Japanese economic mission visited Jugoslavia, Bulgaria, Rumania and Czechoslovakia, while in October, Mr Maseyoshi Ohira, Minister of International Trade and

Industry, toured the capitals of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, discussing ways of expanding Japanese trade with each country.