| Production overview |
Agribusiness
Technological change
Corporate restructuring
Plantations or farms
New markets
Local production Farm Study
Establishment
History
Location
Links with other firms
Government policies
Political conditions
Social Environment
Biophysical impacts
Summary
Production Overview
NEW MARKETS
A final source of change in corporate strategies has been development of new markets. In the late 1960s, as a result of pressure from TNCs and the United States Government, Japan reduced its heavy import duty on imported bananas. The Japanese quickly developed the world's highest per capita banana consumption levels and there was intense competition to supply this growing market.
Small-scale established suppliers from Taiwan competed with independent growers from Ecuador and the more distant Central American plantations of the TNCs.
To secure a greater share of the Japanese market, the TNCs decided in the 1970s to develop new banana plantations in the Philippines, a potentially low labour-cost producer which had not exported bananas previously. By 1980, the Philippines had captured 85 per cent of Japanese imports but Filipinos had little control over their new agricultural export industry.
Authorised by: Professor Robert Fagan
Photograph courtesy of Dr Peter Krinks
Designed and compiled by J. Davis
Date: 21.02.2004
Revised:
Copyright 2004