Manufacturing in Japan

Japan's major export industries include automobiles, consumer electronics (see Electronics industry in Japan), computers, semiconductors, copper, iron and steel.

Additional key industries in Japan's economy are petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, bioindustry, shipbuilding, aerospace, textiles, and processed foods.

Japanese manufacturing industry is heavily dependent on imported raw materials and fuels.

Japan dominated world shipbuilding in the late 1980s, filling more than half of all orders worldwide. Its closest competitors were South Korea and Spain, with 9 percent and 5.2 percent of the market, respectively.

The Japanese shipbuilding industry was hit by a lengthy recession from the late 1970s through most of the 1980s, which resulted in a drastic cutback in the use of facilities and in the work force, but there was a sharp revival in 1989. The industry was helped by a sudden rise in demand from other countries that needed to replace their aging fleets and from a sudden decline in the South Korean shipping industry. In 1988, Japanese shipbuilding firms received orders for 4.8 million gross tons of ships, but this figure grew to 7.1 million gross tons in 1989.

Although facing competition from South Korea and China, Japan retains a successful, advanced shipbuilding manufacturing industry.

Japan lost its leading position in the industry to South Korea in 2004, and its market share has since fallen sharply. The entire European countries' total market share has fallen to only a tenth of South Korea's, and the outputs of the United States and other countries have become negligible. Military shipbuilding remains dominated by U.S. and European companies, however.

The aerospace industry received a major boost in 1969 with the establishment of the National Space Development Agency (now Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), which was charged with the development of satellites and launch vehicles.

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