ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 19, 1995 TAG: 9512190036
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: By MARTHA SLUD Associated Press
TOBACCO AND COAL they know. Eeichi ``Eddie'' Yano's quest is bringing his countrymen other items from the Old Dominion.
While American and Japanese leaders haggle over automobiles and the U.S. trade deficit, Eeichi ``Eddie'' Yano ponders T-shirts and living-room furniture.
Yano, Japan's new senior trade adviser to Virginia, is on a mission to scour the state for products and services to export. For anyone interested in exporting wares to Japan - a market traditionally tough to crack - Yano wants to hear about it.
No product - except maybe large, gas-guzzling automobiles - is out of the question, he said.
``Everybody has the right to export,'' said Yano, an energetic man who offers as proof a Japanese imports catalog featuring items such as hiking boots, charcoal lighter and toilet cleaner. ``I'll study one by one.''
Yano, 55, represents the Japan External Trade Organization, which was founded in 1958 to send advisers abroad in search of new markets for Japanese products. Under pressure from the U.S. government to reduce the trade deficit, Japan shifted the advisers' focus several years ago to encouraging foreign businesses to look to Japan.
The organization has seven regional offices and 22 advisers in the United States. It also has offices in 57 other countries.
Yano, who began work in Richmond on Dec. 1, succeeds Kazuhiro Kato, who recently retired after a three-year stint in Virginia. He returned to Tokyo to work as a furniture importer. In Virginia, Kato encouraged Virginia furniture makers to pursue the Japanese market.
Yano works in a small office in the Virginia Department of Economic Development. He said he will meet with local development officials and businesses to learn more about Virginia products. Many Japanese people only know Virginia for its tobacco and coal, but he already has learned about other things such as technology and plastics, he said.
``For the first six months, I will just look and look and look,'' he said. ``I have lots of appointments.''
Yano spent 30 years working for Marubeni Corp., a large Japanese trading house, including several years in the company's office in St. Louis, Mo. That gave him an insight into the American way of thinking.
It's unclear how many Virginia companies have begun exporting to Japan through the trade organization.
American Standard Building Systems, a maker of prefabricated housing in Martinsville, slowly has entered the Japanese market with modest sales of about $200,000 a year. The company was one of many U.S. exporters of housing products that took advantage of the yen's increasing value last year.
Bob Piper, the company's executive director for international products, participated in the organization's Export to Japan Study Program in 1993. The program taught Piper about Japanese culture, something his company has had to take into account in modifying its standard panelized homes for Japanese customers.
American Standard customizes the homes to incorporate traditional Japanese tatami sitting rooms and recessed entryways, where people can remove their shoes upon entering the home.
Bacova Guild Ltd., a Bath County maker of home textiles, also has done some business in Japan. Eric Dean, director of international business for the company, said he's hoping to expand export opportunities through Yano's Marubeni connections. Bacova already has done some business with Marubeni.
Dean said American businesses that want to export to Japan must be prepared for a slower pace.
``You need to exercise a little more patience,'' Dean said. ``They're very thorough and exact.''
For every exporting success, there are many failures.
A few years ago, Barry Gottlieb of Mad Dog Productions Inc. in Richmond had hopes that his Earl The Dead Cat - a gray, stuffed flattened feline toy that came with a death certificate - would catch on in Japan. About 150,000 Earls had sold as novelty items in the United States.
He arranged through the trade organization to send some over , but the experiment was a flop. Gottlieb didn't know that cats are revered in traditional Japanese Buddhist thought and a dead cat is no laughing matter.
Gottlieb obviously didn't ascribe to the business principle Yano advocates.
``Most important,'' Yano says, ``is to know the market.''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: "I have a lot of appointments" to learn about Virginiaby CNBproducts, Eeichi "Eddie" Yano says.
AP