Three Articles on Ventura County, California’s
Business Connections with Japan
Trade Meeting in Japan Draws Interest of County Executives
Falling Yen Affects County
Businesses with Japan Ties Abound
Trade Meeting in Japan Draws Interest of County Executives
Ventura County Star, October 01, 1999
Frank Moraga
Business editor
Japan will be on the agenda for some local companies and organizations this month.
The 30th annual World Trade Center Association General Assembly will be held Oct. 18-21 in Osaka.
Heading to the assembly will be William Irion of Irion Enterprises in Santa Paula and Gary Snyder, executive director of the California Central Coast World Trade Center Association in Oxnard.
The assembly will feature various seminars, workshops and networking opportunities along with tours of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara.
“It’s important for us to go to develop new business relations and expand existing business relations in Japan,” Irion said. “It’s important in my business to keep current with the changes going on in Japan by being there.”
Irion’s business provides language training services, translation services and works with American companies that have problems with their distributors in Japan.
Snyder said he will make a presentation about development of an e-membership program offering services to all the World Trade Center offices worldwide.
While in Osaka, businesses also can take advantage of the Global Business Opportunities Convention, Oct. 18-20; the Global Excellent Products Fair, Oct. 18-20; the Overseas Investment Promotions Fair ’99, Oct. 18-20; the Global Venture Forum ’99, Oct. 21-22; New Earth 99, Oct. 20-23; or the Global Environment Technology Show, Oct. 20-23, which are all being held in the city.
Attending the Global Environment event will be Geo InSight International Inc. in Ojai.
For businesses interested in attending some of the events, support is available through the U.S. Department of Commerce, the California Trade and Commerce Agency, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), or the California Central Coast World Trade Center.
In one of those programs World Trade Center delegates and affiliated companies can take part in a match-making Trade Mission Program coordinated by the Osaka World Trade Center. The cost is $500.
For details, call local World Trade Center at 988-1406.
* * *
Closer to home, the folks at Los Robles Bank in Westlake Village have been conducting something of a foreign exchange program for the past couple of years with Switzerland.
The latest effort involves Peter Oberhansli, a credit relations manager at Credit Suisse Bank in Zurich who has been on a three-month internship program at Los Robles since July. The internship is part of a program sponsored by the Swiss bank.
Thursday was his last day before he headed out to another bank, said Sharon Clark, vice president of commercial banking at Los Robles.
“People at the bank have really bonded with this international experience,” she said. “If you stand in the shoes of another culture, it broadens your own experience.
“(The Swiss) are coming here to learn how we work with clients and to see how we have created a reputation for outstanding customer service,” she said.
Oberhansli has attended weekly staff meetings and has gone on business appointments with staff members.
“Bob Hamilton (the bank’s president) has been extremely open in letting him know about our business strategy,” Clark said.
The bank’s first experience with Switzerland began last year with another Credit Suisse official interned for a few weeks. And in August, Clark herself took part in a weeklong stay in Switzerland courtesy of Credit Suisse Bank, where she visited the bank’s offices in Zurich and Geneva.
Falling Yen Affects County
Ventura County Star, December 27, 1998
By Frank Moraga
Staff writer
No one has to tell Steve Lazenby how connected Ventura County’s economy is to Japan and the rest of Asia.
All the owner of Santa Paula Recycling has to do is check the latest prices of copper and other metals paid out to scrap haulers and consumers and the money he gets back from metal brokers, who ship the scrap to raw material-starved Japan and the rest of Asia.
All he has to do is open up his wallet.
“There is no profit in recycling left for me and my son,” said Lazenby, who has seen prices drop because of a slump in production of automobiles and other consumer products in Japan.
Just a year ago, Lazenby was making about $1.40 a pound for copper. That has since dropped to 80 cents. Meanwhile, the price he is getting from brokers for iron has dropped from $75 to $25 a ton.
“We can’t continue to rely on it to support us. We will try to keep the business open, but we are both looking for full-time jobs,” he said.
As the Asian financial slide started unfolding late last year, many local business owners and consumers had little reason to think it would come back and hurt them in the pocketbook.
But as we have seen with the wild swings of the stock market this year, and a required presidential visit to Japan last month to help shore up Tokyo’s latest $167 billion (U.S.) economic reform plan, a weak Japan could mean fewer products exported from Ventura County and the rest of California to that nation. That translates to fewer local jobs and rising long-term economic uncertainty.
As the new year rapidly approaches, area economic experts say we may be well advised to keep looking west across the Pacific to see if the economic woes of Japan and Asia continue to lap gently on our shore or hit us like a devastating economic tsunami.
Recovery could take years
Some Japanese officials and local economic experts believe it will be years before the country can turn its economy around, resulting in more hardships for Japanese workers who were used to the concept of lifelong employment.
During a recent interview at a Mitsubishi Motor’s Corp. automobile plant in Nagoya, spokesman Tomoyuki Ohkusa said the company has so far found alternatives to layoffs in Japan as overall demand for Japanese automobiles continues to sag.
“We temporarily idle plants. All the shops are closed one or two days a month,” he said. “We are reducing people by retirement, cutting new hiring and sending people to related (Mitsubishi) companies.”
During a recent visit to Japan, more and more restaurants and small mom-and-pop shops in Japan could be seen with their doors closed because of a continuing cash-crunch crisis as shaky financial institutions struggle to recover from years of bad international investments.
While not as prevalent as in the United States, more and more homeless people could also be seen recently in Japanese city parks, in tunnels under train stations and in the closed-for-the-day business districts.
However, there is still a thread of optimism running through the psyche of the Japanese public, a public long schooled on the traditions of consensus and still thankful to those government officials who rebuilt the nation’s shattered post-World War II economy to a world economic power.
According to a newspaper poll conducted last month by the Asahi Shinbun, most of the Japanese public appears to have confidence that the government will be able to pull the country out of its economic morass.
“Seventy-six percent of the people responded that the economy will recover with the introduction of the government’s (November) reforms,” Saburo Yuzawa, executive vice president of the Japanese External Trade Organization, said during a recent interview in Tokyo.
Consumer spending going up
There are apparently signs that the economy may have hit bottom and may be recovering on its own, with consumer spending in Japan starting to rise.
“Mini car sales are swinging up by 11 percent (over a year ago),” Yuzawa said.
If consumer demands grows, that will open the way for increased California exports to Japan. Exports this year from the state to Japan are expected to drop by 15 percent over 1997.
“I hope it is improving, but Japan’s economy is still not good so I am not so optimistic,” said Akira Moromi, chief executive director of JETRO’s Los Angeles office. However, more than 10 California companies have agreed to take part in a “Health Care ’99” exhibition in April in Tokyo sponsored by JETRO.
“That is more than I expected,” he said.
Moromi said the trade organization has also received some positive feedback from Internet-related companies to its efforts to present a high-tech partnership forum next year in Los Angeles.
“In computer software, they do not worry so much about the Japanese future,” he said. “Most of the manufacturers have been very positive to this kind of seminar.
“In some areas we are very positive and we think there are opportunities in the Japanese marketplace in the future,” he said.
Ties to county substantial
Whether Japan rises or falls is of great importance to a number of business people in Ventura County and the surrounding area, where ties to Japan are substantial.
Ventura County’s connection with Japan is most readily apparent at the Port of Hueneme. On any given week, longshoremen can be seen loading freighters with pre-refrigerated lemons grown by Ventura County members of the Sunkist Growers cooperative. The lemons are bound for ports in Tokyo and Osaka.
Many of those same workers can be seen on other days offloading Mazdas and Mitsubishi automobiles, which are in turn driven to local vehicle processing centers, where hundreds of area residents are employed.
Less noticeable are the more than 40 or so companies in Ventura County and the surrounding area with substantial ties to Japan, with dozens of others having various business relations.
From memory, William Irion can run down the list of dozens of local companies and organizations involved in Japanese trade — everything from Japanese antique shops to flower nurseries, electronic and seafood businesses.
“There are a lot of companies in this area that do business in Japan … It’s amazing the amount of things that go on in this county that relate to Japan,” said Irion, who along with his wife, Kumiko, operates a language-training service in Santa Paula.
“We have an expert lady in Moorpark who does traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. She has a whole crew of people,” he said.
Meanwhile, the names of Amgen, Dole, Kinko’s, Patagonia and other locally based companies are not entirely unfamiliar to the Japanese public and business leaders, who have seen a rising tide of American companies enter and expand in their country.
“If they are exporting, most of them are doing OK,” Irion said.
But even with a struggling Japanese economy, trade and business people say this might be the time to get into the market, especially because it takes time to develop personal relations in Japan, relations that are so important in securing business ties.
Many still don’t understand
However, Cindy Cooke, executive director of the 700-member World Affairs Council of Ventura County, says many business people in Ventura County just haven’t learned their lesson yet, refusing to take notice of economic events half a world away so they can anticipate problems and quickly shift to other markets.
“There is a concept that you have time or money, but not both,” she said. “When the money is not coming in, it’s difficult to take chances. When things are going well, it’s hard for people to have time.
“It was beginning to happen. Before the Japanese economy was heading south, CEOs were asking more questions about” doing business in Japan and Asia for the long term, she said. That stopped abruptly.
The average consumer in Ventura County also has a problem when it comes to understanding how the Japanese economy affects them locally.
“People in this county are very inward looking,” she said. “They don’t have the same connection with the international economy as people in Los Angeles.”
IMPACT:
Woes began in ’97
Japan’s latest economic problems began in late 1997 after the devaluation of the Thai baht, which by year’s end exposed Japanese banks to the potential of $118 billion (U.S.) in bad loans in Thailand and the rest of Asia, according to a report by Japan’s Bank for International Settlement. Those fears further damaged the confidence of Japanese consumers, causing stock market volatility, reducing the availability and increasing the cost of credit to Japanese businesses. Japan is now suffering its worst recession since World War II. The ongoing slump has prompted the Japanese government to announce in November a $167 billion (U.S.) economic stimulus package. Despite such efforts, the Japanese government last week set its economic growth target for next year at 0.5 percent — the lowest forecast since World War II. To jump start the economy, the government last week also proposed a $710.6 billion budget for the next fiscal year, a 5.4 percent spending increase over the previous year. However, the proposal raised fears of widening the nation’s budget deficit. While the government is boosting its spending, its tax revenue is expected to plunge by 19.5 percent next year to $409 billion because of massive tax cuts planned for next year and the general weak state of the economy.
Why care?
Why should we care about Japan as a trading partner? In 1997, Japan was California’s No. 1 export market at $17.4 billion, or a 16 percent share of the state’s total export market. The state exported $98.3 million worth of oranges last year, along with $84.7 million of lemons, much of that grown in Ventura County. In 1995, the latest year figures are available, Japan was the leading foreign investor in California at $34.3 billion, up from $4.6 billion in 1985. The state had the largest number of Japanese-affiliated manufacturing plants, 273 as of 1997, up from 163 in 1987. Ohio followed at 152 in 1997. Along with manufacturing, there were a total of 525 Japanese-affiliated companies (commerce, financial services, real estate, transportation, service-related) in Southern California in 1997, employing more than 84,777 people.
Japan to Hueneme
For fiscal year 1997/98, which ended June 30, the Port of Hueneme’s cargo volume rose 32 percent to a record-breaking 1 million tons. A total of 135,262 automobiles (BMW, GM, Jaguars, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Volvos) were imported through the port in fiscal 1997-1998, up from 106,445 imported in fiscal 1996-1997 and up from 106,834 imported in fiscal 1988-1989. Of those vehicles, about 17,500 Mitsubishi automobiles are expected to be imported this calendar year, up from 15,000 shipped during Mitsubishi’s first year of operation at the port in 1993. Next year, when Mitsubishi’s Tacoma, Wash., vehicle processing center shifts some of its operations down to Pacific Vehicle Processors in south Oxnard, the company is expected to bring in about 31,000 vehicles through the port by the end of 1999. Mazda is expected to import about 30,000 vehicles through the port this year, up from 13,598 shipped during Mazda’s first year at the port in 1977. Overall, port officials are optimistic the number of vehicles in fiscal 1998-1999 will exceed the previous fiscal year total.
What we send Japan
For fiscal year 1997-98, a total of 141,488 tons of fresh fruits were exported from the Port of Hueneme to Japan by the Sunkist Growers cooperative. Much of the citrus was grown here in Ventura County. That’s up 4 percent from the prior year and up from 42,827 exported in 1989. Sunkist Growers shipped from the Port of Hueneme to Japan between 10 million and 12 million cartons (40-pound boxes) of citrus each year. Those consist of between 4 million and 5 million cartons of lemons, 3 million cartons of Valencia oranges, 2 million cartons of navel oranges, and 1 million to 2 million cartons of grapefruit each year.
We send cars, too
Also being exported from the Port of Hueneme to Japan and the rest of Asia are various automobiles, including classic American lowriders, and heavy equipment. During the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, CBS television shipped out its television control trucks through the Port of Hueneme. Parade floats have also been moved through the port
Source: The Oxnard Harbor District, California Department of Agriculture, Massachusetts Institute of Social and Economic Research and the Japan External Trade Organization.
Businesses with Japan Ties Abound
Ventura County Star, December 27, 1998
By Frank Moraga
Staff writer
For many a Ventura County resident, the names Amgen, Dole, Kinko’s, Sunkist and Patagonia are quite familiar ones. Because the companies are based in the county or the surrounding area, we may even know someone who works there.
Guess what? Those names are also getting to be familiar in Japan as well. That has many area companies smiling at the potential for business in the coming years, easing any discomfort they may feel right now because of Japan’s deep economic slump.
The following is a list of some, not all, of the area companies that have operations or trade relations with Japan.
ACT NETWORKS INC.: Based in Camarillo, ACT Networks develops and manufactures products that allow for transmission of voice, data and fax information on a single telephone line. ACT has two distributor partners in Japan; TK Ltd. and Japan Direx Corp., both in Tokyo. TK supplies equipment to NTT, Japan’s national telephone company. ACT has been working with TK for five years and Japan Direx for seven years.
“Historically, Asia had been a strong market E the two markets remaining strong are Japan and Australia,” said Mike Zeile, vice president of marketing. Therefore, the company is continuing and expanding its efforts there.
AMGEN INC.: Touted on Nasdaq television ads as the world’s largest biotechnology company, this home-grown Newbury Park company has links in Japan courtesy of its partnership with Kirin Brewery and its Kirin Pharmaceutical Division. Amgen owns 50 percent interest in Kirin-Amgen Inc., a corporation formed in 1984. Amgen and Kirin collaborate on development of new uses for Amgen’s drugs, Epogen and Neupogen. Amgen also has signed agreements with Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. of Tokyo for licensing marketing of Amgen’s Interferon product in the Far East and Europe. “We have an operation in Japan for clinical development and sales,” Amgen spokesman David Kaye said of the Amgen Japan Inc. facility.
BIOPOOL INTERNATIONAL INC.: Based in Ventura, Biopool International Inc. develops and markets a variety of blood testing kits, with some of its products sold in Japan.
BREATH ASURE INC.: Breath Asure Inc. in Calabasas makes a variety of personal hygiene products such as BreathAsure brand breath fresheners and dental gum. Ernesto Rocco, senior manager of international sales and marketing, recently attended the “Why Japan? Why Now? seminar in Los Angeles sponsored by the Japan External Trade Organization. “We’ve been in the Japanese market about four years,” he said. Prior to Japan’s economic woes, The private company’s sales in Japan accounted for 7 percent of its worldwide sales. It has since dropped back to 4 percent, but Rocco said he is optimistic about its future in Japan and is looking for a new distributor to help sell two new products in Japan.
CHATSWORTH PRODUCTS INC.: Based in Westlake Village, Chatsworth Products makes the mechanical structural supports for the Internet. The company does do a little business in Japan, according to Robert Shu, Asia area sales manager. As far as future plans for growth, “We prefer to let our distributor run the business,” Shu said.
DOLE FOOD CO. INC.: This Westlake Village-based company has long had ties to the Japanese market. In 1996, the latest years figures for Japan were available from the company, Dole’s sales in Japan, its flagship market, increased 16 percent in local currency because of increased marketing efforts and the strength of the Dole brand, which the company says is recognized by 92 percent of consumers in Japan. The company has a total of six Dole distribution centers as of 1997 in Japan operating at or near capacity. The company is the largest importer of fresh fruits and vegetables to Japan. In 1997, it expanded its product offerings by establishing a network of more than 1,200 Japanese farmers who produce broccoli, tomatoes, cabbage, radishes, carrots, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and melons for distribution in Dole centers throughout Japan.
ENVIRO-REPS INTERNATIONAL: The folks at Sumitomo Bank in Japan had a problem: how to keep the water in their fountains sparkling clean. The solution they found was negotiating a deal recently with Bob Friedman, president of Enviro-Reps International in Camarillo, a company that sells more than 30 products, mostly enzyme-bacteria-based, that are used to clean a variety of fountains, aquariums, ponds and even a 4 million-gallon lake.
G&H TECHNOLOGY INC.: The names Caterpiller, Motorola, Honeywell, all in Chicago, and Coca Cola in Atlanta, were on the tour itinerary for a group of Japanese businessmen recently. So why did Camarillo-based G&H Technology Inc. join that prestigious list? Part of the answer eventually will be in outer space. G&H, a manufacturer of a variety of electrical connectors, manufactures parts that are being shipped to Japan for installation in the Japanese portion of the International Space Station. About 5 percent of G&H’s business is done in Japan. However, as Japan’s satellite rocket launched capabilities increase, G&H is hoping to be right there connecting with Japanese manufacturers.
GEO InSIGHT INTERNATIONAL INC.: Based in Ojai, Geo InSight International provides multimedia geographic information software systems that can be used to manage graphic floor plans, maps, and transportation routes to data bases. Mindy Lorenz, program development coordinator, says the company provides services to the U.S. Department of Defense in Japan, but is exploring business opportunities with Japanese defense officials and civilian contractors. Recently, Eric Pommer, the company’s director of business affairs, attended the “Why Japan? Why Now?” seminar in Los Angeles sponsored by the Japan External Trade Organization. “We are trying to follow any regional efforts for doing business in Japan,” she said. “We have an office in Hawaii that is a springboard to that region.” The company also has a part-time employee in Okinawa. In addition, company president Margaret Elliott is a Japanese-American, born in Okinawa, raised and educated in Hawaii.
GREEN FOODS CORP.: The subsidiary of Japan Pharmaceutical Development in Osaka, Japan, Green Foods Corp. for the past 10 years has operated a farm in Oxnard, where it grows barley. About five years ago, the company relocated its U.S. operations from Orange County to Oxnard, opening a manufacturing facility and U.S. corporate headquarters. Today, it has 80 employees. The company makes a variety of dietary and organic food supplements such as a barley grass-based power juice called Green Magma and other products. It also has a vitamin-rich herbal product for dogs and cats.
HAAS AUTOMATION INC.: The Oxnard-based company, which entered the Japanese market in 1993, recently reported sales of $2 million a year in Japan. While it has been hard competing in Japan against such other Japan-based machine-tool manufacturers as Komatsu, Matsuda, Moriseiki, Toyoda, those same companies have been cutting prices and selling their products in the United States, further cutting into Haas’ revenue. While Haas officials still see potential in Japan for the company’s computer numeric controlled metal-milling stations, for now Haas has redirected its efforts to Europe and other less struggling markets.
HATTORI & ASSOCIATES: Based in Agoura Hills, Hattori & Associates provides consulting services to Southern California companies interested in starting joint venture partnerships in Japan, according to owner Lowell Hattori. Hattori recently attended the “Why Japan?” Why Now? seminar in Los Angeles sponsored by the Japan External Trade Organization. “It was a very interesting. They are trying to bring in U.S. investments, but (they didn’t address) how the prefecture governments will assist in bringing companies to Japan.”
INTERLINK ELECTRONICS INC.: Based in Camarillo, Interlink Electronics Inc. manufacturers and markets remote computer mouse control systems. The company has a wholly owned subsidiary in Japan, Interlink Electronics Inc. KK.
INTERNATIONAL TRAINING SYSTEMS: When the Taisei Corp., the largest construction company in Japan, needed to train its workers in its international department how to deal with the “assumptions, perceptions, traditions and values that drive many cultures of the world,” all they had to do was to call Shosahna Brower and Michel Englebert, partners in International Training Systems in Oxnard. ITS recently provided training for Taisei for the 10th year.
IRION ENTERPRISES: Based in Santa Paula, Irion Enterprises is owned by William and Kumiko Irion. The company provides language training services, translation services and works with American companies that have problems with their distributors in Japan, William Irion said. The company recently taught a class for the city of Oxnard for anyone who wanted to learn Japanese, which included the prize of a free trip to Japan, he said. Over the years, Irion has worked with a number of trade and international relations group such as the World Affairs Council and the California Central Coast World Trade Center.
JAPAN DIGITAL LAB CO. LTD.: Based in Camarillo, Japan Digital Lab Co. LTD. is a subsidiary of a Tokyo-based, 1,000-employee company. The company manufactures plotters used in computer assisted drafting and reprographics markets in Japan. It has a 20-employee U.S. sales division in Camarillo.
JITCO GROUP LTD.: Jitco Group Ltd. in Chatsworth assists various U.S. manufacturers in getting their products sold overseas, especially in Japan, said Ravinder Sethi, company president. Products include apparel, sporting equipment, luggage. One of their recent clients was Haynes, the underwear company. While the Asian financial crisis has caused sales of U.S.-brand goods to drop 20 percent to 50 percent, Sethi is optimistic that sales will turn around some if the government’s reforms bare fruit.
KINKO’S: This Ventura-based business services company has come a long way from its initial start in a closet-like space off the campus of UC Santa Barbara. Kinko’s first entered the Japanese market in 1992 with its first store in Nagoya under a joint venture partnership with Sumitomo Metal Mining. It opened its 25th store in Japan on Dec. 21. The company has plans to reach the 200-store mark throughout Japan by 2003.
McMULLEN’S JAPANESE ANTIQUES: McMullen’s Japanese Antiques in Oxnard sells Japanese antiques, including multipurpose storage units used in Japan instead of closets and porcelain items. Owner John McMullen often makes buying trips to Japan.
NAKAMURA BERRY GROWERS: Based in Oxnard, Nakamura Berry Growers, sells its strawberries to Dole Food Co. Inc., which in turns ships a portion of them to Japan.
PATAGONIA: With its headquarters in a very Ventura-like beach city of Kamakura, Japan, this environmentally conscious Ventura-based company has been operating in Japan since 1988, opening its first store in the Mejiro district of Tokyo. Currently, the company has five stores throughout the country. The company plans to open one new store next year and plans to add more stores as the its environmental concepts and products become more widely accepted.
RWC INTERNATIONAL: Bob Coshland visits Japan about eight times a year. No, he isn’t doing it for the frequent flyer miles or to gaze at the inspiring view of Mount Fuji. About three years ago Coshland founded RWC International in Ventura. His company represents other American companies in Asia, including Japan. Businesses he represents include coating company Whitmore Mfg Co. in Texas, filter manufacturer TSE Co. in Atlanta, and instrument maker Northern Technologies in Minnesota. He has been traveling to Asia for 30 years and has sold products for 15 years.
SEIKI SPEAR SYSTEMS OF AMERICA: Based in Ventura, Seiki Spear Systems of America, the plastics industry company is a subsidiary of a Japanese company in Yonecawa City, Yamagata.
SUNKIST GROWERS INC.: Based in Sherman Oaks, the 6,500-member cooperative, with members in Ventura County, ships lemons, Valencia and navel oranges and grapefruit to Japan, its largest export market in the world, from the Port of Hueneme. In 1997, the company shipped a total of 9,217 cartons (a 40-pound box) of fruit to Japan, down from 9,714 for the prior year. Sales of the fruit in 1997 totaled $172.1 million, down from $174.06 million for 1996. Sunkist is the 47th most recognized brand name in the world. Its Sunkist Pacific Ltd. operation is based in Tokyo and the company has a cooperative agreement with Daito Corp. in Tokyo.
TRADEWIND SEAFOOD INC.: Based in Oxnard, Tradewind Seafood Inc., the company processes fresh sea urchins and transports them by air to Japan. Sales are in the $3 million to $5 million range annually.
VITESSE SEMICONDUCTOR CORP.: Based in Camarillo, Vitesse Semiconductor manufactures high-speed communications integrated circuits. The chips are used in the telecommunications, data communications and computer industries. The company operates a subsidiary direct sales office in Tokyo, Vitesse Semiconductor Japan Corp. The company presently has four employees in Japan. Last year, the company reported sales in Japan of $13.6 million, a little less than 8 percent of the company’s overall sales of $175 million.
XIRCOM INC.: Based in Thousand Oaks, Xircom Inc. develops and manufactures network access systems for mobile computer users. The company has a Singapore subsidiary that serves Japan. It is currently setting up a Japan-only subsidiary in Tokyo.
Business clerk Marie Buckner contributed to this report.
— Editor’s note: As stated above, this is a list of some, but not all of the companies in Ventura County and the surrounding area that do business with Japan. Because there is apparently no one source for finding those businesses (I know, I’ve been searching in vain for one), we have relied on company press releases, U.S. government contacts, information from Japanese trade associations and solicitations in our business stories from our readers. To keep our list updated, please contact business editor Frank Moraga at 383-2317 or e-mail at moraga@staronline.
DOING BUSINESS IN JAPAN:
Interested in doing business in the Land of the Rising Sun, here are a few contacts to
keep in mind:
California Central Coast World Trade Center:
300 Esplanade Drive, Suite 1900, Oxnard, 93030
Office: 988-1406
Fax: 988-1862
Gary R. Snyder, executive director
Center for International Trade Development:
Oxnard College
Office: 644-9981
Fax 658-2252
Export Small Business Development Center:
Ventura Satellite
Office: 644-6191
Fax: 658-2252
Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), Los Angeles office:
777 S. Figueroa St., Suite 4900, Los Angeles, CA 90017
Office: (213) 624-8855
Fax: (213) 629-8127
U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service: Ventura County District Export Assistance Center:
Office: 981-8152
Fax: 981-8155
World Affairs Council of Ventura County:
Office: 449-9953
Cindy Cooke, executive director
