Notes

1. Scheduling, under the conventional practice of carrying goods from the airport or seaport to the factory and distribution to clients, has become difficult to maintain. In April 1991, Japan IBM introduced a "Comprehensive Plan for Company Distribution" (Kaisha Sogo Butsuryu) in an effort to overcome this problem (Nikkei, 26 September 1991). A Systems Package Centre (SPC) comprising a cluster of warehouses has been developed in Tokyo and Osaka to store parts carried by ship from factories in the United States. In accordance with the specifications established by clients, the parts are marshalled on an assembly line in the SPC prior to delivery by truck. This new system has enabled US producers to switch from air to sea freight and has reduced the inventories at local factories.

2. Other Pacific Asia-based international carriers among the world's top 25, according to Staple (1990:16), included Japan's KDD or Kokusai Denshin Denwa (ranked 10th) and Taiwan's DGT (ranked 24th). By the mid-1990s, China's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications became a major international power. By 1990, outgoing traffic from both Hong Kong and China was over 500 million MiTT - almost two-thirds of Japan's outgoing traffic. Major international communications ports are located in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

3. Liberalization of South Korea's closely regulated and structured market was planned for 1992.

4. In 1991, there were 300,000 subscribers in Jakarta out of 1.5 million lines in Indonesia. Only 14 per cent of subscribers had access to international line traffic.

5. As noted by Staple (1990:45-46), 0.15 per cent of Japan's traffic in 1988-1989 was international, compared with 1 per cent for the United States and 2 per cent for the United Kingdom. In 1988, Japan's ratio of international letters to telephone calls was 2:1, whereas the latter exceeded the former for the first time in the United States. This situation is likely to change in Japan with the introduction of language translation services.