Could Increase of Food Industry FDI Lead to Expansion of Japanese Agricultural Product Exports?: Suggestions from Survey of Overseas Japanese Companies

摘要

Since the turn of the new century, some significant structural changes have occurred in Japanese food industry FDI (foreign direct investment). The most important one may be the objective shift of the FDI from buying or producing agricultural and other foods overseas and then export to Japan, to mainly targeting at the foreign local markets. During the period of Japanese food industry FDI mainly aimed at buying or producing agricultural and other foods overseas and then export them to Japan, the FDI has essentially promoted the agricultural product imports and contributed to the decline of Japanese food self-sufficiency. However, when more and more Japanese food companies shifted their FDI focus to targeting at foreign local markets, could this new type FDI stimulate Japanese agricultural product exports? We conducted a questionnaire survey that was administered to overseas Japanese food companies to investigate outcome of the FDI shift. In this paper, we first report the survey results, and based on the survey results, we finally do some discussion about the question mentioned above. The study concludes that increase of the FDI aimed at foreign local markets would provide some opportunities for Japan to export agricultural products and other foods. But, could the opportunities be realized or not is fully dependent on the cost competitiveness. The high cost problem is usually a persistent obstacle for Japan to export their agricultural products and other foods in the past and today. How reduce the cost is the key point and a big challenge to Japan.