Kakamigahara, Gifu Pref. –
For much of its 72 years, Hitoshi Fujita’s company was just another family business that milled metal parts. Then it did something unusual for a small Japanese manufacturer: it expanded by buying two neighboring companies in the last decade.
Unless more small businesses follow suit, the future of the country that transformed global manufacturing in the 20th century looks bleak, Fujita says.
Years of faltering growth and population decline have left many of Japan’s small and medium-sized businesses barely scraping by on government support and near-free financing. These businesses, which account for about 7 out of 10 jobs, are now being shaken as pandemic-era support wanes and interest rates rise for the first time in 17 years.
