Japan-U.S. Business Report articles from December 1998

Japan-U.S. Business Report archives from December 1998

Japanese Companies in the United States: CHEMICALS.
December 31, 1998... A $41.3 million expansion is underway at DAIKIN INDUSTRIES, LTD.'s four-year-old fluoroplastics plant in Decatur, Alabama to install capacity for tetrafluoroethylene and hexafluoropropylene. These monomers, currently imported from Japan, are...

Japanese Companies in the United States: ELECTRIC MACHINERY.
December 31, 1998... Digital television-capable PCs will arrive in stores sometime during the first half of 1999, thanks to the joint efforts of MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD. and COMPAQ COMPUTER CORP. The consumer electronics giant developed a...

Japanese Companies in the United States: FINANCIAL SERVICES.
December 31, 1998... Another Japanese bank has found in its profitable U.S. commercial finance unit a way to raise money to cover the write-off of bad loans. SANWA BANK, LTD. has agreed to sell its wholly owned SANWA BUSINESS CREDIT CORP. to FLEET FINANCIAL GROUP,...

Japanese Companies in the United States: FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.
December 31, 1998... UNITED GRAIN CORP., a MITSUI & CO., LTD. company, and CENEX HARVEST STATES COOPERATIVES, the largest farmers' cooperative in the United States, have integrated their wheat and barley operations in the Pacific Northwest. Equally owned UNITED...

Japanese Companies in the United States: METALS AND FABRICATED PRODUCTS.
December 31, 1998... Rescuing magnet wire manufacturer OPTEC DAI-ICHI DENKO CO., LTD. has become a complex, multinational effort. In October, France's ALCATEL S.A. acquired OPTEC D.D. U.S.A., INC., which has made copper magnet wire in Mexico, Missouri since 1987....

Japanese Companies in the United States: NONELECTRIC MACHINERY.
December 31, 1998... MEGATOOL, INC., a Buena Park, California maker of carbide drills for printed circuit boards, has another expansion underway. The wholly owned UNION TOOL CO. subsidiary expects to complete a $5.8 million second plant in Buena Park in the spring....

Japanese Companies in the United States: PHOTO EQUIPMENT AND COPIERS.
December 31, 1998... Having a strong lineup of copiers, fax machines, networked multifunctional machines, optical filing systems, printers and scanners is not enough to win more accounts from big and midsized American companies, CANON INC. has decided. It needs...

Japanese Companies in the United States: PRECISION AND MEDICAL EQUIPMENT.
December 31, 1998... In a reversal of their original relationship, FERROTEC CORP. licensed manufacturing and marketing of its ferrofluid sealed spindles to FERROFLUIDICS CORP., which was instrumental in the Tokyo company's formation in 1980. Used in semiconductor...

Japanese Companies in the United States: SEMICONDUCTORS.
December 31, 1998... Through a $23 million capacity expansion, KOBE PRECISION, INC. is running what it says is the largest silicon wafer reclamation facility in North America. Semiconductor manufacturers use recycled wafers as test wafers to optimize and monitor...

Japanese Companies in the United States: SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS.
December 31, 1998... The list of Internet ventures that have received financing from SOFTBANK CORP. continues to grow. In its latest move, Japan's top software distributor paid $40 million for a 9.9 percent stake in BUYCOMP.COM CORP., which sells software, computer...

Japanese Companies in the United States: TELECOMMUNICATIONS.
December 31, 1998... All of the contracts that Japanese companies have let to date for communications or broadcast satellites have gone to either HUGHES SPACE AND COMMUNICATIONS CO. or to SPACE SYSTEMS/LORAL INC. That record has been broken. SPACE COMMUNICATIONS...

Japanese Companies in the United States: TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT.
December 31, 1998... In a good-news/bad-news development, MITSUBISHI MOTORS CORP.'s Normal, Illinois assembly unit, which has been building vehicles since 1988, posted its first profit ever in the year through March 31, 1998. However, as part of its drive to return...

Japanese Companies in the United States: MISCELLANEOUS.
December 31, 1998... Ten months after it put its money-losing Secaucus, New Jersey distribution subsidiary up for sale, TSUMURA & CO. has found a buyer (see Japan-U.S. Business Report No. 342, March 1998, p. 9). For a reported $20 million, BALAE BRANDS, INC. will...

American Companies in Japan: CHEMICALS.
December 31, 1998... A third major Japanese pharmaceutical company has acquired a license to use GENETICS INSTITUTE, INC.'s DiscoverEase protein development platform. SANKYO CO., LTD. joins CHUGAI PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD. and KIRIN BREWERY CO., LTD. in using the...

American Companies in Japan: COMPUTERS AND PERIPHERALS.
December 31, 1998... The subsidiary of professional services giant ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS CORP. hopes to win contracts from five new companies a year to handle all or part of their information technology operations. It is off to a good start. EDS has a...

American Companies in Japan: CONSTRUCTION AND REAL ESTATE.
December 31, 1998... Japanese contractors continue to turn to American companies for expertise on how to build the food safety standards captured by the HACCP (hazard analysis critical control points) program into food-service facilities. The latest is MAEDA CORP....

American Companies in Japan: ELECTRIC MACHINERY.
December 31, 1998... In a move that should drive down the now high cost of digital television receivers, SARNOFF CORP. is licensing a manufacturing reference design for customizable DTV sets through ITOCHU TECHNO-SCIENCE CORP. The design can be implemented in...

American Companies in Japan: FINANCIAL SERVICES.
December 31, 1998... The sixth-biggest consumer finance company in Japan -- the AIC CORP. subsidiary of Dallas-head-quartered ASSOCIATES FIRST CAPITAL CORP. -- just got bigger. At an estimated cost of $124 million, it acquired a midsized Shizuoka prefecture...

American Companies in Japan: MERCHANDISING.
December 31, 1998... Outdoor retailer RECREATIONAL EQUIPMENT, INC. has selected TOKYU CORP.'s Minami Machida Shopping Center as the location of its first international store (see Japan-U.S. Business Report No. 347, August 1998, p. 15). The Seattle company will...

American Companies in Japan: NONELECTRIC MACHINERY.
December 31, 1998... The financial problems of some companies affiliated with FV CORP. will help COCA-COLA CO.'s Japan operation move closer to its goal of having 1.3 million vending machines across the country. For an undisclosed price, the Tokyo food and beverage...

American Companies in Japan: PHOTO EQUIPMENT AND COPIERS.
December 31, 1998... At the relatively low price of $81,800, EASTMAN KODAK CO.'s subsidiary is marketing the LVT RHINO Image Recorder, a high-resolution, desktop film recorder that writes digital images on 4 x 5-inch and 8 x 10-inch transparency and negative films....

American Companies in Japan: PRECISION AND MEDICAL EQUIPMENT.
December 31, 1998... In the future, the luggage of passengers arriving at Narita International Airport will be automatically screened for drugs. To further Japan's drug interdiction efforts, the Ministry of Finance's Customs Bureau has ordered a pair of detection...

American Companies in Japan: SEMICONDUCTORS.
December 31, 1998... The expansion of the high-speed communications market has persuaded VITESSE SEMICONDUCTOR CORP. to open a wholly owned direct sales subsidiary in Tokyo. The facility also will include a design center where field application engineers will work...

American Companies in Japan: TELECOMMUNICATIONS.
December 31, 1998... Washington, D.C.-based XM SATELLITE RADIO INC., which plans to launch coast-to-coast, multichannel, satellite-delivered digital radio service in the United States in 2000, has signed agreements with three Japanese companies to make and market...

American Companies in Japan: TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT.
December 31, 1998... In a milestone for the aircraft industry and for U.S.-Japan commercial relations, BOEING CO. delivered the 100th 747 jumbo jet to JAPAN AIRLINES CO., LTD. The long-range 747-400 is configured to carry 348 passengers -- 12 in first class, 99 in...

American Companies in Japan: MISCELLANEOUS.
December 31, 1998... The aft fuselage for Japan's first production F-2 support fighter aircraft has been delivered to prime contractor MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES, LTD. by LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP. The top U.S. defense contractor, the builder of the F-16 on which the...