Fusion Of Japanese Industrial Policy And Trade Policy

The industry policy and trade policy of Japan at postwar are very important factors to the development of economy of Japan in this period. The dissertation took the industry policy and the trade policy as two keys from the period of the end of 1940's to the end of 1980's to show their important functions differently first and then combined them together to seek their effects on the economic development of Japan.The industry policy is one of the most important parts of all economic policies a country took. It is a kind of policy that tries to seek a good distribution way of resources among the industries. It has two scopes, macro factor and micro factor. The dissertation only discusses the macro factor of the policy. That is the industry structure policy. From the postwar to 1980's, Japan began to open outside gradually. The importance of industry policy is to protect and develop the potential industries, to help improve their competence.The industry policy is regarded as the most important policy of all ones. It made high influence on finance policy, tax policy, trade policy, foreign exchange policy and etc. the government combined all kinds of other policies with the industry policy to improve the industry structure to a high level.The Japanese government took five measures to reach this goal. The first one is the government development plan on industry. The second one is favorable financial and tax policies. The third one is favorable investment policies. The fourth one is the government administration on the industries. The fifth one is all kinds of support rules and regulations on industries.How to select a potential industry is an important factor on making the industry policy. Japan put many industries as potentials gradually, such as iron and steel industry, oil chemistry industry, synthetic fiber industry, cars industry, machinery industry, appliance electric industry, electric equipment industry etc.This period of economic development in Japan was divided into three phases. The first phase is called recovery phase, from 1946 to 1960. The government took special emphasis on iron and steel industry and coal industry as to the poor economic situation at that period. The policy means to use the recovery of iron and steel and coal to lead others recovery. As to energy and resource are all needed to import, thegovernment took strict administration on international trade and foreign currency. After the recovery of economy during 1950's. The government began to readjust the structure of industry, selecting iron and steel industry, coal industry, electric power industry and marine transportation industry as potential industry to support. At the same time, trade was set as the country's basic economic strategy and processing trade was encouraged.At the end of 1950's it began to invest modern industries, such as cars, synthetic fiber, machinery industries. The trade policy is still protectionism.Japan joined OECD at 1960's. It faced open market and free trade. But it still took protect trade policy to limit import and improve export. It began to support heavy machinery and chemistry industry. These industries began to be the bone industry of export.At 1970's trade is totally free. The first oil crisis in 1973 stopped the high development of Japan. It took three years to recover and another two years to recover from the 2ed oil crisis. The policies it took are to change heavy machine industry and chemistry industry to technological intensive industry and further to high knowledge intensive industry in 1980's. But at the same time, it meet strong trade confliction with the USA and European on color TV, cars etc. It had to limit its import, but still kept more trade surplus.From this development period, Japanese government combined industry policy and trade policy successfully to develop itself. It made a high achievement. Japan became the powerful economy country in the world just after the USA. The goal of the dissertation is to dig out the successful experience and ways of Japanese policy on industry and trade...