JAPANESE shipping companies, sparked into action by the sudden appreciation of the yen, are moving to globalise their operations.
Most of their activities these days can have one goal in mind: ensuring their costs are incurred in foreign currencies rather than in yen.
In addition, Japanese shipping companies are adjusting to changes within the shipping business itself.
The most dramatic has been a shift in the traditional pattern of cargo movements as Japanese manufacturers increasingly transfer their production operations overseas.
In 1992, shipments to and from Japan accounted for 20.7 per cent of international cargo movements by sea. But this figure is deceptive.
The Nikkei Weekly reported that, although international cargo movements increased in 1992 by 2.4 per cent from the previous year to 4.2 billion metric tonnes, shipments to and from Japan declined by 0.5 per cent to 785 million tonnes.
