The Land Of The Rising Yen

Stereotypes strobe across the minds eye when Japan is mentioned. Exquisite geishas entertaining suit-clad executives who sip their whisky and base their 21st Century marketshare strategies on the philosophy of a 17th Century swordsaint. Extempore rendition of 17 syllable poetry by a people with two scripts and no letter L. Kurasawa period-pieces, ritual seppoku and the formalism of masked Noh and Kabuki coupled to the raucous nightclubs of the Ginza and the wild gambling rings of the nine-fingered Yakuza.

A country with an unique blend of ancestor veneration with Zen Buddhism, where holy volcanoes simmer in the background while bullet trains zip along. Skyscrapers regularly devastated by earthquake and tsunami. Also, the Death Railway, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a post-war recovery that took the Land of the Rising Sun to the position of third largest trader in the world.

Only in Japan could such contradictions exist in harmony. The key to Nipponese culture is that search for harmony Wa in every detail. It has enabled the descendants of the Sun Goddess Ameterasu Omikami to prosper as the longest ruling dynasty, and Japan to retain deep roots even while absorbing the best of contemporary technological melange.

The Japanese miracle combines spectacular economic growth while retaining cultural suzerainty despite possessing dozens of fast food restaurants. India is getting a chance to study both aspects of Japan Close Up as a cultural festival combines with partner status in the 12th Indian Engineering Trade Fair.

While the likes of Sony, Hitachi, Honda, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi display their state-of-the-art wares at Pragati Maidan, various Nipponese artists and performers also display their skills, courtesy the Mitsui Close Up of Japan cultural programme.

Mitsui is a soga sosha a trader with a foothold in 91 countries. Their Indian connections include the Anpara (UP) 500 MW turnkey power project in 1994. They are also building a Rs 6,000 crore, 9 MTPA oil refinery for MRPL in Karnataka scheduled for completion in 1999. There is also a $130 million sintering plant for Sail at Bhilai which will have a capacity of 3.2 MTPA when completed in 1998. Plus, they control 51 per cent of premier iron-ore exporter Sesa Goa through a holding company.

Mitsui promotes contemporary Japanese culture through the annual Close-Ups a tradition started in San Francisco (1983). Since then, the exhibition has toured London, New York, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Jakarta, Paris, Berlin, Sao Paulo and Sydney.

This time the basic elements of the Close-up involved a textile arts exhibition by premier textilist Jun-ichi Arai, a jugalbandi between Zakir Hussain and Taiko drummer Leonard Eto backed by his group Thrill, and also a performance by the Rinken Band, a folk group out of the Southern island of Okinawa. The Indian co-organisers were the Sanskriti Prakashan. Apart from the Close-Up, the Japanese embassy has also organised a food festival, a film festival, various poster and painting exhibitions, concerts and a Japan external trade organisation (JETRO) seminar to coincide with the IETF.

Arai and Eto are both friendly individuals with spiritual streaks underlying their vocations and an abiding interest in India. In Japanese tradition, the drum was invented to propitiate the Sun-goddess when she was angry with the desecration of her loom and hid her light away in a cave. New York born Eto has played before with Zakir and observes there is no comparison between the instruments, but it is very interesting to play the tabla. He plays three sets of Taiko drums and is backed by electric violins and a full horn section. The music is a variation on fusion and Etos own performance characterised by unbelievable energy.

Arai hails from Kiryu which, according to him, is the textile centre of Japan. The 65-year-old has spent his entire life designing and innovating with fabrics and is credited with developing 36 industrial processes creating amalgamations of gold/silver fibres with polyfilm yarns. At the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, his spectacular Fantasia exhibits some 100 designs in 14 materials ranging from naturals like cotton, wool and silk to exotics like rayon and lyocell. He is deeply interested in Hindu philosophy, something he initially picked up from an NRI-restauranter. His visiting cards carry quotes from the Bhagvadgita and Vatsayana.

So much for the cultural aspects of Indo-Japanese collaboration, the economic cooperation has also expanded since the early JVs between Hero Honda, TVS Suzuki and Maruti Udyog in the 1980s. Since 1991-92, bilateral trade has grown some 125 per cent. Japan is Indias second largest import partner, buying an estimated Rs 7,700 crore, and the third largest exporter selling around Rs 8,800 crore in the last fiscal. Of course, in Japanese terms India merely ranks 20th in their list of trading partners. But it makes sense after previous IETFs have featured partners such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy to collaborate with Japan this time.

In other countries, currency weakness is the bugbear. But, in Japan, export success has led to the reverse problem. The rising yen has forced the severest recession since 1945. The export-oriented economy saw three decades of 7 per cent plus growth allied to 100 per cent employment. Growth has now slipped to 1.9 per cent. The fiscal deficit is around 7 per cent and unemployment runs at 3 per cent as competitiveness erodes with currency buoyancy. Interest rates have been slashed to 0.5 per cent but the recession is expected to ease only in 1998. By then, the Japanese will have hedged their bets by expanding to places with weaker currencies and lower labour costs.

Japanese estimates are that India could easily absorb some $2 billion per annum in FDI. It ranks high on their ideal locations for setting up low-cost manufacturing bases for re-export. They are also interested in the domestic market. Hence the entry of many of the 140-odd Japanese Fortune 500 companies in the last couple of years.

The Japanese now wish to enter new areas like power, telecom, infrastructure, tourism, steel, software and electronics. In 1996 however, India received $700 million just about 1 per cent of total Japanese FDI flows of around $70 bn. This flow could increase sharply as the Japanese are now looking at India as a serious alternative to the PRC, Malaysia and Thailand.

The 11th IETF featured three records - 24 country participation, 2 lakh visitors and Rs 5,146 crore of business. This time round, there are 31 countries and the other two records are likely to be shattered. Long live Indo-Nipponese bhai bhai!