Sōgō shōsha
With the Japan, the sōgō shōsha are commercial firms which are used as intermediary in the commercial exchanges.
They are very few (a score) and the Japanese independent groups, the Keiretsu, have their clean sōgō-shōsha : the nine larger sōgō shōsha are thus Itochu, Kanematsu, Marubeni, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Nichimen, Nissho Iwai, Sumitomo, and Toyo Menka.
They account for the nine larger Keiretsu into which they are integrated. Their action developed much during the last years. They help also the small and medium-size companies to penetrate the international markets. They cover more 50 % of exports and know the exterior markets perfectly. They combine multiple actions and deal with transport, storage, the distribution, publicity, the recruitment and the formation of labor, the creation of subsidiary companies or even the risk management. For example, the sōgō shōsha of Mitsubishi manages 25 000 different products. They endeavor to satisfy the customers and work with METI (ex MITI) but however certain key sectors of industry escape to them (automobile, photo, electronic).
In opposite direction, they bring more 65 % of the products bought by the Japanese abroad.
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