Industry in Japan: industries and their development

Japan (Nihon, or Nippon) is one of the leading economic powers. It is among the leaders together with the United States and China. It accounts for 70% of the total product of East Asia.

The industry of Japan has reached a high level of development, especially in the areas of science and education. Among the leaders of the world economy - the company Toyota Motors, Sony Corporation, Fujitsu, Honda Motors, Toshiba and others.

Current state

Japan is poor in minerals - only coal, copper and lead-zinc ores are important. Recently, the processing of the resources of the World Ocean - the extraction of uranium from sea water, the extraction of manganese nodules - has also become topical.

From the point of view of the world economy, the share of the Land of the Rising Sun accounts for about 12% of the total production. The leading industries of Japan are ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, machine building (especially motor industry, robotics and electronics), chemical and food industries.

Industrial zoning

Within the state there are three largest regions:

• Tokyo-Yokohama, which includes Keyhin, East Japan, the prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, the Kanto region.
• Nagoysky, he refers to Tyuke.
• Osaka-Cob (Khan-syn).

In addition to the above, there are also smaller areas:

• Northern Kyushu (Kit-Kyushu).
• Kanto.
• East maritime industrial area (Tokaj).
• Tokyo-Tiba (it includes Kei-e, East Japan, the Kanto region and Chiba prefecture).
• Inland-Japanese sea area (Seto-Naykai).
• Industrial area of the northern lands (Hokuriku).
• Kasimsky district (this includes the same East Japan, Kashima, Kanto region and Ibaraki prefecture).

More than 50% of the revenues of manufacturing industries are in the districts of Tokyo Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe and Nagoya, as well as in Kitakyushu in the north of the island of Kyushu.

The smallest and medium business is the most active and stable element of the market in this country. 99% of all Japanese companies belong to this sphere. However, this is not true with regard to the textile industry. The light industry of Japan (the leading element of which is the mentioned branch) is based on large, well-equipped enterprises.

Agro-industry

The agricultural lands of the country occupy about 13% of its territory. Half of these lands are flooded fields used for growing rice. At its core, agriculture is multi-sectoral, and it is based on agriculture, or more precisely, the cultivation of rice, industrial crops, cereals and tea.

However, this is not all that Japan can boast of. Industry and agriculture in this country are actively developing and supported by the government, giving them a lot of attention and investing a lot of money in their development. A significant role is also played by gardening and vegetable growing, silkworm breeding, livestock, forestry and marine crafts.

An important place in the agrarian sector is occupied by rice. Vegetable growing is developed mainly in the suburbs, under it is allocated about a quarter of agricultural land. The remaining area is occupied by industrial crops, fodder grass and mulberry trees.

About 25 million hectares are covered with forests, in most cases the owners are peasants. Small owners own plots of about 1 ha. Among the major owners are members of the imperial family, monasteries and temples.

Breeding of cattle

Livestock in the Land of the Rising Sun began to develop actively only after the Second World War. It has one feature - the basis is imported, imported feed (corn). Own Japanese economy can provide no more than a third of the total demand.

The center of animal husbandry is Fr. Hokkaido. In the northern regions pig production is developed. In general, the number of cattle reaches 5 million individuals, and about half of them - dairy cows.

Fishing Fisheries

The sea is one of those advantages that Japan can rejoice. Industry and agriculture receive multiple benefits from the island's location of the country: this is an additional way for the delivery of goods, and assistance to the tourism sector, and a variety of food products.

However, despite the sea, the country has to import a certain number of products (according to international law, the production of marine life is allowed only within the boundaries of territorial waters).

The main objects of fishing are herring, flounder, cod, salmon, halibut, saury, etc. About a third of the catch is from the waters around the island of Hokkaido. Japan did not bypass the achievements of modern scientific thought: aquaculture is actively developing here (pearls, fish in lagoons and rice fields are grown ).

Transport

In 1924 the park of cars in the country totaled only about 17.9 thousand units. At the same time, there was an impressive number of rickshaws, bicyclists and wagons that were driven by oxen or horses.

Twenty years later, demand for trucks grew, mainly due to the growing needs of the army. In 1941, 46706 cars were produced in the country, of which only 1065 are cars.

Automobile industry in Japan began to develop only after World War II, triggered by the war in Korea. Better conditions were provided by the Americans to those companies that took up military orders.

In the second half of the 1950s, demand for passenger cars also increased rapidly. By 1980, Japan had overtaken the US and became the world's main exporter. In 2008, this country was recognized as the largest automaker in the world.

Shipbuilding

This is one of the leading industries, employing more than 400 thousand people, considering working directly in factories and auxiliary enterprises.

The available capacities allow building ships of all types and destinations, with a total of 8 docks designed for the production of supertankers with a displacement of 400 thousand tons. The activities of the industry are coordinated by ASKYA, which includes 75 national shipbuilding companies, which together produce about 80% of the total volume of ships produced in Japan.

The development of Japan's industry in this area began after World War II, when in 1947 the planned shipbuilding program began to operate. In accordance with it, companies received very favorable concessional loans from the government, which grew every year as the budget grew.

By 1972, the 28th program envisaged (with state aid) construction of ships with a total displacement of 3304 thousand vehicles. The oil crisis has greatly reduced the scale, but the foundation laid by this program in the post-war years has served as a stable and successful growth of the industry.

By the end of 2011, the order portfolio for the Japanese was 61 million dwt. (36 million brd.). The market share remained stable at the level of 17% by deadweight, with the bulk of orders related to bulk carriers (specialized ships, a type of dry cargo ship for transportation of cargo like grain, cement, coal in bulk), and smaller - to tankers.

At the moment, the number one in the construction of ships in the world, despite serious competition from South Korean companies, is still Japan. Industry specialization and government support have created a foundation that supports serious companies afloat even in this situation.

Metallurgy

The country has few resources, in connection with which a strategy for the development of the metallurgical complex was developed, aimed at energy and resource saving. Innovative solutions and technologies allowed enterprises to reduce electricity consumption by more than a third, with innovations applied both at the level of individual companies and in the whole industry.

Metallurgy, like other industries, specialization of the industry of Japan, actively developed after the war. However, if other states sought to modernize and update already existing technologies, the government of this country took a different path. The main efforts (and money) were aimed at equipping enterprises with the most advanced technologies at that time.

The rapid development of the industry lasted about two decades and reached a peak in 1973, when 17.27% of the world's total steel production fell to one of Japan. And from the point of view of quality, she pretends to be a leader. This was stimulated, among other things, by the import of metallurgical raw materials. After all, more than 600 million tons of coke and 110 million tons of iron ore are imported annually.

By the mid-1990s, Chinese and Korean metallurgical enterprises competed with the Japanese, and the country began to lose its leadership position. In 2011, the situation worsened due to a natural cataclysm and a catastrophe at the Fukushima-1, but according to an approximate calculation, the overall decrease in production rates did not exceed 2%.

Chemical and petrochemical industry

The chemical industry of Japan in 2012 produced products at 40.14 trillion yen. The country is one of the world's top three leaders together with the United States and China, having about 5,500 enterprises of the appropriate orientation and giving jobs to 880,000 people.

Within the country itself, the industry ranks second (its share is 14% of the total), second only to machine building. The government is developing it as one of the key areas, paying great attention to the development of environmentally friendly, energy and resource-saving technologies.

Produced products are sold in Japan and exported: 75% - to Asian countries, about 10.2% - to the EU, 9.8% - to North America, etc. The basis of exports is rubber, photographic products and aromatic hydrocarbons, organic and inorganic compounds, etc.

The country of the rising sun also imports products (the volume imported in 2012 was about 6.1 trillion yen), mainly from the EU, Asia and the USA.

The chemical industry of Japan leads in the production of materials for the electronic industry, in particular about 70% of the world market of semiconductor products and 65% - liquid crystal displays belongs to the companies of this island country.

In modern conditions, much attention is paid to the development of the production of carbon fibers and composite materials for the nuclear and aviation industries.

Electronics

Much attention is paid to the development of the information and telecommunications industry. The role of "the main locomotive of the industry" is the technology of transmission of three-dimensional images, robotics, fiber and wireless networks of a new generation, intelligent networks, "cloud computing."

In terms of infrastructure, Japan is catching up with China and the United States and is among the top three. In 2012, the total number of Internet users in the country reached 80% of the total population. Forces and funds are directed to the creation of supercomputers, the development of effective energy management systems and energy-saving technologies.

Power Engineering

Approximately 80% of the need for energy resources Japan was forced to provide through imports. Initially, this role was played by fuel, especially oil, from the Middle East. In order to reduce dependence on supplies in the Land of the Rising Sun, a number of measures were taken, in particular, with regard to "peaceful atom".

Research programs in the field of nuclear power Japan began in 1954. Several laws were adopted and organizations established to fulfill the government's goals in this area. The first commercial nuclear reactor was imported from the UK, it began operating in 1966.

A few years later, the country's utilities bought drawings from Americans and built facilities along with local companies. Japanese companies Toshiba Co., Ltd., Hitachi Co., Ltd. And others began to design and build light water reactors themselves.

In 1975, due to problems with existing stations, an improvement program was launched. According to it, the Japanese nuclear industry had to go through three stages by 1985: the first two were supposed to change the existing structures in order to improve their operation and maintenance, while the third required increasing the capacity to 1300-1400 mW and carrying out fundamental changes in the reactors.

Such a policy led to the fact that in 2011 in Japan there were 53 operating reactors that provided more than 30% of the country's electricity needs.

After the "Fukushima"

In 2011, Japan's energy industry received a serious blow. As a result of the strongest earthquake in the history of the country and the subsequent tsunami at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, an accident occurred. After a major leakage of radioactive elements, 3% of the territory of the country was contaminated, the population of the zone around the station (about 80 thousand people) turned into settlers.

This event forced many countries to think about how acceptable and safe is the exploitation of the atom.

Inside Japan there was a wave of protest with demands to abandon nuclear energy. By 2012, most of the country's stations were shut down. The characteristics of Japan's industry in recent years fit into one sentence: "This country is striving to become" green "."

Now it does not actually use the atom, the main alternative is natural gas. Great attention is also paid to renewable energy: the sun, water and wind.