With the end of the cold war, Japan is communicating with eastern countries/regiorzs, especially Russia and the Russian Far East, North Korea and three provinces in northeastern China more and more intensively. These countries/regions including Japan hope now keeutly that "the Sea of Japan Economic Region"is to be developed. Japan is carrying out a variety of exchanges with self-governing organizations, economic societies and people in the countries/regions.Why is it necessary to develop "the Sea of Japan Economic Region"? From the side of Japan, the purposes are to activate the Japanese area on the Sea of Japan, to put the Japanese economic structure and land utilization in order to advance economic relations with the countries/regions and to make more contributions to the world. Of course, it is not so easy to develop "the Sea of Japan Economic Region", because there are many problems to be solved. In addition to political problems, there exist great differences in the economic system, nationality, religion and the stage of economic development among the countries/regions including Japan. It is here important to ask how we can solve these problems.It is important for Japan to understand the history of the other countires/regions on the Sea of Japan in order to develop economic exchanges with them.Japan should also pay attention more to exchanges of education, culture, sports and so on. On the other hand, it is important for the other countries/regions to reform and open their markets and to provide adequate conditions for investment from western countries. The common problems both for Japan and for the countries/regions on the Sea of Japan are the relationship between the central government and local ones, the arrangement of convenient transportation and communication,the education of talent, and the exclaanges of information.It is certainly not easy to develop "the Sea of Japan Economic Region",because this project is a "great experiment" in history. But, if we take into account the trends like the single market in the EC, "the Free-Trading Agreement"between the United States and Canada and the development of economic region in southern China, we can find in any case two different movements : globalization on one hand and localization on the other hand. We cannot ignore the importance of development of "the Sea of Japan Economic Region", because Japan is one of the strong economies in the world. We should ask, "What kind of position Japan is going to have in the international society?".

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In the Seventh Five-Year Plan, the whole territory in China is divided into the three economic zones, i. e., eastern, central and western. To the eastern zone is assigned the role of accelerating development and to the central zone, that of enhancing energy and raw material supply. The Northeast Economic Region, consisting of three provinces, extends over two of these three zones. The southern province, Liaoning, belongs to the eastern, while the two northern provinces are,attached to the central zone.A comprehensive industrial system has been formed in the Northeast Economic Region, especially in Liaoning, with heavy industries and a sufficient capacity for manufacturing a wide range of equipment. Though the labor productivity remains still low in the state-owned enterprises, some transformation of old enterprises is taking place and accelerated as a result of the foreign investment and technology transfer. The importance of the horizontal relations being recognized, the Northeast Economic Region has established multi-level economic cooperation networks with many other regions. Dalian functions as the main port open to the outside and as the largest center for distributing materials and goods in the region.Trade and small-scale transactions with Russia and North Korea are increasing in the provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang of the central zone in the Seventh Plan. The border area has begun to shift from an economy dominated mainly by agriculture to a more diversified one containing also industry and trade. But, to develop the whole Northeast Economic Region on the base of an export-oriented economy, it is important to develop the Sanjiang plain and Tumenjiang basin.

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The Soviet, and later the Russian Far East has been the focus of domesticand foreign attention since the reevalttation of its foreign economic policy through perestroyka. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the future of the CIS is unclear, and also the Russian Federation including the Far East is experiencing political, economic restructuring. Recently in Japan, we have had lively discussions about the Russian FarEast and its economic relations to our country. That region is regarded as a part of "the Sea of Japan Economic Region" or "the Northeast Asian Economic Zone".It is, however, necessary to examine the foreign economic relations of the Russian Far East, because "the Sea of Japan Economic Region" or "the Northeast Asian Economic Zone" is not yet an established economic region. The author examines this problem, paying attention subregional differences within the Russian FarEast. The results are to be summarized as follows. Until the late 198Os, the centralized command economy and limited foreign relations had made the former Soviet Far East a resource supply region with certain sectors of rnanufacturing. It can be characterized as a periphery to the European core of the former Soviet Union. In addition, there could and can befound marked regional differences in socio-economic conditions especially between the southern and the northern part of the Far East. Since the late 1980s, the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation have adopted various policies,regarding the Far East as of greater importance, in order to promote their foreign economic relations. As a result, the number of joint-ventures, for example, is growing. Meanwhile, the relationship between the Russian central authority and the local ones has not yet been fully established along with stagnant decentralization of power after the August coup d'etat. Although both the shift to a market economy and the expansion of the foreign economic relations are taking place in the Far East as a whole, it is predictable that spatial disparity is going to increase within this region, judging from the inherited, regional economic conditions and the location of recently registered joint-ventures. Therefore, it is important how and to what degree each of the Russian central authority and the local ones can participate in the restructuring of the regional and subregional economies. In this context, the outcomes in the near future of the state regional program "the Far East" and the state program for the socio-economic development in the Northern regions are worthy of attention.In any case, it is not only with the countries on the Japan Sea but also with the other Asian-Pacific countries that the Soviet and later the Russian Far East has developed and intends to develop its foreign economic relations.

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The olcjective of this article is to discuss the problems and prospects for the development of new organizational forms and institutions in Russia as well as the Far East. The discussion begins with a cursory discussion of the legal and institutional background of the Soviet economic system before the beginning of Gorbachev's reforms. Next, the major property rights questions associated with the reforms are presented. The rest of the paper discusses and evaluates several of the key legislative reforms dealing with new property and organization forms which have been enacted in the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation since 1988. At the same time, the attributes and functioning of several new types of property and organizational forms are explored. These include joint ventures, foreign investment, free economic zones (FEZs), restructured state enterprises, various types of cooperatives, small enterprises,joint-stock companies, securities and stock exchanges, and commodities exchanges. The long standing and recent heating up of the territorial conflict over the southern Kurile Islands is briefly placed within the context of both the current internal economic and political turf battles raging in Russia. The reforun legislation dealing with the processes of destatization and privatization, including an early pessimistic assessment of the voucher scheme which iscurrently underway, is presented in the last section of the article. The author concludes with very little optimism that the Russian economic market reform process will be successful any time soon and with the fear that the disintegration of the old system is far from complete and has yet to yield its worst ramifications in terms of social infrastructure decay, widespread poverty, rapid concentration of wealth, armed regional and ethnic conflict, and widespread human misery and despair.

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