The retiring age in the industry is accepted as being 56-58 years. A person may continue to work after this age if he so wishes and a pension is provided at age 60, and up to November 1969, this was 10,000 Yen per month. From November 1969 this was increased to 20,000 Yen per month. In addition to this regular payment any employee who has had 30 years' service with the company, when he retires, is paid 60 months' pay by the company. There have been occasions when a company has not had the financial ability to make these payments but in general, companies do make this payment to their retiring operatives.
Japanese Economy
Whilst in Japan we made some enquiries in respect of the general basis of the Japanese economy since the prosperity of each individual industry is dependent on the global prosperity of the country.
It should be appreciated that the Japanese gross national product is the third largest in the world. Its rate of growth is far in excess of any other nation, last year its real growth was nearly 15%, which is equivalent to the United Kingdom accumulative growth of the last five years.
The growth of the Japanese economy is a complete paradox in that its tremendous rate of expansion has not been accompanied by considerable inflation and, therefore, the real wealth of the nation and the workpeople in the country has increased progressively and it is estimated that the balance of payments surplus in the Japanese economy is perhaps the most stable in the world. Consequently one can understand the pressures being brought to bear on Japan to revalue upwards the Yen in comparison to the remainder of the world's currency.
We found great difficulty, during our visit, of extracting any specific data from the balance sheets since Japanese company accounts are arranged in a completely different manner to those throughout the rest of the world. The manner of the presentation of the accounts makes it most difficult to assess the true earning position of any company.
There is no doubt that the Japanese economy is well established and the power of the Yen can very well be an embarrassment in the world fiscal markets over the next 5/10 years. There is no doubt that the Yen at the present moment is considerably under-valued compared with the remainder of the world's currency.
FACTORY VISITS
In each factory we visited we were met by the trade union representative but it should be remembered that each factory is a trade union in its own right. We were conducted round the factory by the trade union officials and did not meet the management until the end of the visit when we had the opportunity of discussing the various problems encountered during our visit with them. Factory (i)
The first factory we visited employed approximately 800 people and manu- factured outerwear and underwear, both for males and females. The company purchased the yarn but undertook all the other operations in the manufacturing process and it was said that the dyehouse was perhaps the finest in Asia. The
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