MITI and the Japanese miracle

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fast action by Shiina and his successor as vice-minister after October 12, 1945, Toyoda Masataka. When MCI was recreated in August 1945, Shiina had thoughtfully set up a Trade Section (Koeki-ka *) in the Commercial Bureau, even though it did not have anything to do. Its head was Matsuo Taiichiro*, class of 1934 and one of the few MCI foreign trade specialists. During the Pacific War he worked as chief of the Import Section in the Greater East Asia Ministry, and in September 1956 he became the first genuine MITI bureaucrat to head the International Trade Bureau after the ministry finally freed itself of dominance by Foreign Office transferees. After retirement in 1960 Matsuo headed the New York office of the Marubeni Trading Company, and during the 1970's he became president of Marubeni. Arguing that MCI already had the nucleus of the organization SCAP wanted, Toyoda barely managed to beat back the claims of the Foreign Ministry. He also recalled years later that this MCI victory had occurred early in the occupation, before SCAP knew the lay of the land very well.

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Even though the BOT was attached to MCI, the ministry had very little influence over it. BOT staff members from MCI were heavily outnumbered by Foreign Office officials who spoke Englishan indispensable requirement, since the BOT's main business was with SCAPand who needed assignments during the period when Japan had no other foreign relations. Until April 1947 the BOT conducted its domestic business through some 78 "semigovernmental" trade associations of exporters and importers. These associations were straight postwar continuations of the old control associations, although under new names; when SCAP realized what was going on, it banned any further use of the cartels. They were then replaced by four fully governmental corporations (kodan*), one each for minerals and industrial products, textiles, raw materials, and foodstuffs (see the Foreign Trade Public Corporations Law, number 58 of April 14, 1947). The BOT also controlled the Foreign Trade Fund, which concentrated all U.S. aid receipts and foreign exchange earned from exports into a single account to be used to buy strategic imports.

During 1947 and 1948, when the priority production system was in full operation, the ESB set basic trade policy and drew up a foreign exchange budget; the BOT in turn kept the accounts for the fund and supervised the kodan, whose fixed capital was supplied by the government and whose working capital was obtained by loans from the BOT's Foreign Trade Fund. The kodan actually purchased goods for export from domestic producers and sold them to the BOT, and they received consignments of SCAP imports from the BOT, which they in turn sold to consumers. Before April 1949 SCAP and the BOT also