Anti-Japan riots to hurt sales: JETRO

Anti-Japan riots to hurt sales: JETRO

TOKYO: A third of Japanese companies with operations in China
expect business there to sag in the aftermath of anti-Japan riots
two months ago, according to a government study.

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), a government-
run agency that promotes trade, found that 151, or 36.5 percent,
of the 414 Japanese companies surveyed in May forecast a fall in
sales in China this year because of boycotts and a "tarnished
image" for Japanese products.

Forty companies, or 9.7 percent, said their sales are already
shrinking, the JETRO survey said.

Although more than half of the companies said the protests had
no apparent effect on their sales, 13 percent said they would
rethink plans to invest in China or even move their factories to
other countries, according to the survey, which was posted on the
agency's Web site.

The poll found that many companies that had shifted plants to
China because of low labor costs were now worried about finding
Chinese who want to work for Japanese companies, or possibly
contentious management-worker relations.

Violent anti-Japan protests broke out in China in April as the
two countries clashed over World War II history, exploitation of
natural resources and the ownership of East China Sea islands.
The riots led to a sharp decline in relations between Tokyo and
Beijing.

In a JETRO survey in November and December of last year, more
than 80 percent of Japanese businesses had expansion plans in
China, while 0.2 percent said they would downsize or pull out
from there. -- AP