Wrong place, wrong time, false sales hopes
Japanese supplier struggles to attract interest as it seeks to expand beyond its home market
They came to Canton Fair for the first time in the hope of expanding into the Chinese market.
But they found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kawamura Electric and Nitto Kogyo, two of Japan's largest electrical appliance makers focusing on the Japanese market, were the only Japanese presence among the 24,840 exhibitors at the fair.
That compared to the 17 Japanese exhibitors that attended the fair's autumn session last year.
Japanese goods and car sales have plummeted since a territorial dispute between Japan and China over the Diaoyu Islands - known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan - in August sparked nationwide boycotts of Japanese products. Despite the tension, Kawamura came in search for new customers at Guangzhou's oldest trade fair. The depreciation of the yen has heightened the company's need to look for markets outside its home country.
"We manufacture the products in China and ship them back to Japan for sale, so the appreciation of the yuan and the recent downfall of the yen dealt a double blow to our business," Kawamura's president, Arima Ryoichi, said.
The company's sales in China fell by 5 per cent last year, although they improved by between 10 to 15 per cent in the first quarter of this year. That meant little to the company's total turnover as more than 80 per cent of the company's sales were made in Japan.
