NEC Corp plans to contribute further for the hollowing out of the Japanese economy and plans to move a load more production overseas in the next three years in a bid to soothe Japan’s friction with trading partners and lessen currency risks, chairman Tadahiro Sekimito said. We need a higher ratio of the overseas production to hedge against currency fluctuations, he said. It expects to raise the ratio of production outside Japan to 67% in 1999 from 54% in 1995; the remaining 46% is made in Japan and sold overseas. Sekimito said that NEC is likely to increase hardware and software production in the US, the UK and other Asian countries – but that while Asia is currently offering attractive low labour costs that NEC does not expect to continue very long.
