Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 2, 1994 TAG: 9403020029
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
- These days, many people have ideas about how to shrink the huge U.S. trade deficit. Some want sanctions. Others believe in a stronger Japanese yen.
Kiichirou Ayano has tried bagels, glow-in-the-dark dog necklaces and Rastafarian pottery.
Ayano, a Japanese trade representative, has sought to open markets in his homeland to these and other U.S. products.
Trained as a fabric buyer, Ayano is part of a team that may go down as the oddest byproduct of the trade dispute between the United States and Japan.
Nearly four decades ago, a booming Japan sent trade representatives like Ayano to the United States to promote its exports.
Recently, though, as the U.S. trade deficit with Japan has soared, the 21 senior trade advisers have been ordered to do an about-face and promote U.S. exports to Japan.
"One of my callings is to export good products from the U.S., even if it's a very little bit," Ayano said. "That is my duty."
A day with Ayano shows it's no easy task.
The first stop on a recent cold, rainy day is an unheated ceramic studio in Brooklyn, where Jamaican-born artist Noel Copeland is painting pink and blue Rastafarian characters, with flowing dreadlocks, onto platters and sushi plates.
Never mind Japan's ancient tradition of exquisite china. Rasta is on the way.
"These kinds of products are a different taste," said Ayano, who's helping Copeland sell to a Japanese boutique. "Very funky."
On to a tiny Harlem fur shop, where Steven Cottman hopes to export mink baseball caps to Japan. Ayano urges him to make his hats bigger and rounder, for Japanese heads.
Next on the list is Kate Kennedy, in lower Manhattan. Like Copeland and Cottman, Kennedy met the Japanese representative through a government export program, this one run by the regional Port Authority.
Kennedy is beaming. Thanks to Ayano, her glow-in-the-dark plastic dog necklaces were featured in a Japanese import magazine. She has received several orders. Now Ayano says a Japanese entrepreneur wants to license the design for Glow Dogs.
Kennedy said she'd like to shift all her production to Asia.
"I think it would be more cost-effective," she enthused, but added, "I don't know if I'm betraying my country."
Ayano later told a reporter: "We are helping only Made-in-America."
The Japan External Trade Organization, which employs the advisers, estimates it was responsible for $150 million in U.S. exports to Japan last year. That's a small sum compared to the $59 billion U.S. merchandise trade deficit with Japan.
Still, Ayano defends his mission.
If General Motors or Ford want to export to Japan, he said, "they have the resources. The small or mid-size company has no such resources."
For all his efforts, Ayano says less than 10 percent of the companies he helps succeed in exporting. Some run up against government regulations. Others just have the wrong products.
Bagels, for instance, didn't appeal in Japan.
Ayano scoured his country on behalf of two American bagel entrepreneurs who thought the rice-eating nation was ready for an alternative carbohydrate.
"I tried six or seven months for these people, but no success," he said, looking crestfallen. "There is no Japanese market at present."
by CNB