Annals of the Association of Economic Geographers
Online ISSN : 2424-1636
Print ISSN : 0004-5683
ISSN-L : 0004-5683
Volume 37, Issue 4
Displaying 1-14 of 14 articles from this issue
  • Article type: Cover
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages Cover1-
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (34K)
  • Article type: Cover
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages Cover2-
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (34K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages App1-
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (45K)
  • Kazuo TOMOZAWA
    Article type: Article
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 313-333
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Since 1980, Indian economic policy has been showing a tendency to shift from 'regulation' to 'liberalization'. Under the regulatory policy until 1980, the Indian Government directly controlled economic activities by applications of 'Industries (Development and Regulation) Act' and 'Industrial Licensing' system. The introduction of these regulations in this period had resulted in few numbers of licensed companies in each segments of automobile industry. Motor vehicles' markets had been oligopolic situations as well as parts and components' ones. Most of automobile companies failed to improve their manufacturing techniques and advance the performance of their products. Automobile industry, as well as other ecnomic sectors, lost competitiveness in the international market in terms of the price and the quality of their final goods. In order to find a way out of above economic dificulties, the Government has changed her economic policies toward 'liberalization'. Licensing control and other restrictive/protective policies have performed poor responsibilities for Indian industries. Then, not only for domestic companies but also for foreign ones, it has been easier to establish new enterprises in almost all the fields of economic activities. According to the liberalization of the post 1980, Japanese automobile companies have collaborated with Indian enterprises in establishing new firms to produce modern motor vehicles. Up to 1990, eight Japan-India joint ventures were founded on all the segments of autombile industry, except for commercial vehicle. On the other hand, existing auto firms in India have tried to innovate their production processes due to introduction of foreign technology. As a result automobile production has rapidly expanded in number since 1980. Japan-India joint ventures adopted the Japanese management system to reduce production cost and to make Japanese designed vehicles. As the degree of the adoption basically depended on their capital composition, so there were some different ways between them. In the light of spatial allocation, we could find following tendencies. Headquarters of them were located in the Capital (Delhi), State Capitals (Madras, Hyderabad and Chandigarh) and other large cities (Pune and Indore). But their factories were founded on the outskirts and remote places for the reason that new location of facilities was restricted in underdeveloped areas by the Government. In this case, they could obtain some advantages, for example government subsidy, tax exemption, cheap labor forces and so on, while there were also some difficulties to operate factories. First of all, few ancillaries were able to produce automotive parts. Assemble factories have owed the supply of components to the existing agglomerations of automotive industry (Delhi, Bombay, Pune and Madras). The distance of transportation was too much long (500-2,O00km., needed 7 days at most) to adopt 'just in time' system with other evil factors, for instance poor infrastructure, differentiations of the way of commercial trade and the quality of labor forces between Japan and India. In Pitanpur, which is situated in 'No Industrial District' of Dhar District, Madya Pradesh and about 30km. away from the nearest city (Indore), the State Government have been developing an industrial growth center to accumulate automobile industry since 1983. The total land in this project is 1,960 ha., 1,372 ha is allotable land and the remaining land has been kept for roads, culverts and other amenities. Up to 1990, 62 large and medium size facfories and 554 small ones were located in the industrial estate, including some facilities under construction. We could find four automobile factories (two Japan-India joint ventures, two indigenous ones) which have took on approximately 3,000 workers in total. With the foundation of them, a

    (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

    Download PDF (2314K)
  • Takanori MATSUDA
    Article type: Article
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 334-353
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    As the scale of supermarkets was larger and their mechandise line was more general after late 196O's, movements of small and medium-sized retail firms against supermarkets grew more excited. The movements resulted in their protective application of the Larue-Scale Retail Store Act, the law for the purpose of adjusting businesses of larze-scale retail stores in order to secure businesses of small and medium-sized retail firms. Kyoto was called 'one of the hardest city in Japan for large-scale retail stores to open'. After describing retail policies and conflicts among different kinds of retail firms in Kyoto, this paper investigated empirically some characteristics of retail stores in which perishables were purchased by households in four districts (cencus tracts) of central Kyoto. The characteristics investigated were share of customers of each retail store based on the store patronage inquiry, and location, scale, type, and opening date of each retail store based on the retailers'directory in Kyoto and on obserbations in the fields. As a result, the author found the structure of competitions among various retail seores in central Kyoto under the Large-Scale Retail Store Act. The findings are as follows. In central Kyoto, people have patronized traditional retail markets, which are some city markets opened after late 1910's and many private markets opened from late 1940's to l960's. However, the growth of supermarkets decreases customers of traditional retail markets as well as of petty and small firms. Though central major firms located large-scale and general supermarkets in the suburbs and in the fringe of central Kyoto from late 1960's to early l97O's, some of local small and medium-sized firms have located small-scale supermarkets below the base area of the Large-Scale Retail Store Act in central Kyoto since the middle of 1970's. Small supermarkets of local small and medium-sized firms shared as many customers as traditional retail markets in 1987, when shares of each retail store were investigated. While some of small and medium-sized firms, instead of central major firms, are going to occupy an important positon in the local retail trade through the modernization of the type of retail stores under the protective applications of the Large-Scale Retail Store Act, most of petty and small firms, including petty firms which constitute traditional retail markets, are about to be forced to close their stores owing to their financial difficulties and their aging. Small firms have been definitely stratified in central Kyoto since the middle of l970's.
    Download PDF (2244K)
  • Hirohisa YAMADA
    Article type: Article
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 354-368
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The regional structure of Tokyo Metroplian Area (M.A.) has greatly chanzed since the country's rapid econmic growth. If the land value is assumed to be the total index which reveals the regional structure, the changes in the regional structure should be reflected in the changes in the land value distribution. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship between the land value and the regional structure by means of a regression analysis. In this paper, Tokyo M.A. is classified between the central city and the outlying areas. The central city covers the 23 wards of Tokyo, while the outlying areas consist of the communities (shi, machi, mura) which show 10% or more ofthe commuting rate to the central city. The author designates the cities in the outlying areas as the outlying cities. The results of the regression analysis of the land value for the outlying cities are as follows: Residential land value:The correlation coefficients between the residentiall and value and 4 variables (distance to the central city, population, annual retail sales par capita, annual wholesale sales par capita) show that the distance to the central city is the most important factor which influences the residential land value(Table 1). The relationship between the land value and the distance to the central city is precisely expressed as an exponential function. The author calls the curve between the land value and the distance to the central city the land value curve. The land value curve shifts upward year by year showing an ever sharper rise in rate of increase (Fig. 1). And the land vand value is generally higher in the western than in the eastern outlying cities. Commercial land value : In commercial areas, there are several factors which influence land value. Though the distance to the central city is one of them, population and annual retal sales per capita are more importnant determinants (Table 5).Such difference between the resindential and commercial land values is caused by the difference in the mechanism for land value determination. That is residential land value is determined as a result of the evaluation of "livability", while commercial land value is determined on the basis of the surplus profit which the commercial land produces. In outlying cities where a large number of commuters to the central city live, "libability" is determined on the easiness of accessto the central city. When the metropolitan area becomes more densely populated, however, both land values influence each other. This phenomenon results from the land utilization pattern in Japan, where, unlike in other countries, residential areas are interspersed with non-redidential areas, both vying for space.
    Download PDF (1793K)
  • Osamu SAITO
    Article type: Article
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 369-382
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Japanese feed industry has developed together with livestock farming as Japanese livestock farms depend entirely on purchased feed. The main features of the Japanese feed industry are as follows: (a) It has been difficult to diferentiate between products since feed is an input material, the industry is highly concentrated as there are only a few sellers. (b) 90% of production costs stem from that for materials, the processing cost is low. This often leads to over competition due to over production. (c) Since it obtains the materials from abroad, the factories are usually built in coastal areas. (d) The products are mainly in the form of complete mixed feed in order to add value and to improve feed efficiency. Compared with the American feed industry, the Japanese feed industry has larger factories and more dealers on the distribution side. The costs of the feed industry consist of those for importation, storage, processing and distribution as well as that for materials. The processing cost is determined by the scale, running efficiency and the extent of automation in the factory. In the case of a large factory, the scale merit works but it is offset by the larger cost of importation, storage and distribution and still has a limited distribution area. However, the costs of importation and storage have been cut by building silos. The costs of distribution have also been cut by constructing stock points,transporting to them in bulk instead of bags, and using larger lorries. These cost saving processes have also eliminated wholesalers and concentrated distribution management into the feed factories, which have rationalised the marketing of feed. The agricultural cooperatives started to reorganize their feed factories and move their locations from inland areas to coastal areas after private factories did, when the demand for feed began to stagnate. However, competition with privat feed factories has forced agricultural cooperatives to cut the margin on their feedfactories. This has raised the problem of coordiantion between central cooperatives,prefectural cooperatives and regional cooperatives and has lead to change in the way cooperatives compete between producers or between regions. On the other hand, the private factories have coped with stagnating demand for feed by reorganizing factories, introducing a new system to produce feed under contract with the final users and sharing investment for new factories with other feed companies. The feed companies have faced "vertical" competition with local integrators who use feed as well as own feed plants.
    Download PDF (1795K)
  • Jun ONODERA
    Article type: Article
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 383-406
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In China industries, which played a certain role in people's communes, have developed rapidly as "township industries" according as the central government adopts economic reform and "open door" policy since the late 1970's. They are expected to reduce the socio-economic gap between urban and rural areas. This paper pays attention to the function of rural industries as a potential agency of reforming urban-rural relations, and attempts a close examination on the location and the social bases of rural industries in Jiangning county, the hinterland of Nanjing. The rural industries have developed as the main sector in rural economy of China in place of agriculture. The location analysis demonstrated that the rural industries used to be widely distributed but recently have come to concentrate on the regions easily accessible to Nanjing. Moreover, machinery, textile and chemical industries, which presuppose the existence of close interindustry networks, have been given more weight in the total output of rural industries. Consequently, the rural industries have tended to connect themselves with urban sectors in Nanjing, not with rural resources or agriculture. This paper has put its emphasis on the following three aspects as the social bases of rural industries:formation of joint venture, rural labourers (nongmin gong) and control by the rural community (such as xiang/zhen) governments. Some rural industries are assisted by urban industries in the way of funds, technical knowledge, managerial skills and marketing contact. Moreover they are likely to get incorporated into subcontract system. The joint ventures like this enable rural industries to expand their stable production and secure management. It is also found, however, that some of them try to keep up their relative independence from urban sectors as enterprises owned by rural communities. Nongrnin gong means rural labourers who work in factories while working as farmers within the household registration system. They are restricted to migrate to urban area under an obligation to ctultivate land and responsible for their own provisions and welfare. They played a significant role in the local labour force market through supplying cheaper labour forces to rural industries. The rural community governments depend their fiscal budget greatly on the profit from the rural industries and also expect the industries to generate further employment and raise living standards in the rural communities. Therefore the governments are eager to intervene in the management of the rural industries, for instance, through introducing factory manager responsibility system and also making sure of some immobile factors of production such as funds, raw materials and energy. These efforts have been meeting economic development strategy for the rural communities. The generation of relationships between urban and rural industries and the increase of nongmin gong are the process of rural urbanization. On the other hand, rural indutsries are controlled by the rural community governments and have still been following customary economy in rural area.
    Download PDF (2900K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 407-411
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (696K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 412-419
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (790K)
  • Article type: Index
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 420-421
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (149K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 422-
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (129K)
  • Article type: Cover
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages Cover3-
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (35K)
  • Article type: Cover
    1991 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages Cover4-
    Published: December 31, 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: May 19, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (35K)
feedback
Top