Interview with Mr Masahiro Okafuji

The history of ITOCHU Corporation dates back to 1858 when ITOCHU’s founder Chubei Itoh commenced linen trading operations. Over 150 years, the company has been a 'sogo sosha,' engaged in domestic trading and import/exports. ITOCHU has developed significantly in the past five decades, after World War-II.

While many trading companies have distanced themselves from their ‘textile’ origins, we remain a ‘textile company’. Marubeni and ITOCHU are the last two 'sogo soshas' to have an independent textile division in the organization. The Textile Company is ranked one of the top three domestic retailers/garment /apparel companies. ITOCHU’s net income reached 17.1 billion yen, making ITOCHU one of the top leading trading company.

We change our business models together with the rapid changes in the consumer market. In addition, our business covers a vast range of fields; from raw materials to garments, accessories, foods, household goods and products related to our lifestyles.

Asia is very important to our business for mainly two reasons. Firstly, we have many factories in Asia for manufacturing not only materials and textiles, but also products for final consumers, such as garments and accessories. We put emphasis on these factories, since we are expecting business growth in the European and US markets. Secondly, Asia has great possibilities as consumers’ market. We have expanded our business to launching stores in Asia, such as ‘Le Sport Sac’ and ‘DEAN & DELUCA’. ‘Le Sport Sac’ was launched in collaboration with Novo Concept Holding Limited in Hong Kong. ‘DEAN & DELUCA,’ which is a sophisticated grocery store with a cafe, was launched in Taipei as the first one in Asia, in January 2007.

In regards to brand business, we put emphasis on introducing brands with attractive backgrounds and histories, and developing the best market for each of the brands. It is also important for each salesperson to be very keen on knowing what the consumers want, so that he or she can find any small possibility for a future business. In other words, our role is to ‘market brands’.

MAGASeek Corporation, our subsidiary (listed on the TSE Mothers Market), is involved in e-business. It gives opportunities for consumers to purchase through its internet site, the exact products such as garments and accessories, introduced in magazines. Though the company is an offspring of one of ITOCHU’s internal business project, it has now developed into a dominant e-business.

A new division, Textile Material & Fabric Division, was set up in April 2007 to effectively respond to the customers’ needs from fabrication to finishing garments. If a customer chooses our developed fabrics, the process of producing the garment can be done at the most suitable sewing place for the fabric.

Our subsidiary, INKMAX, is coordinating the new technology of dyeing fabric without the use of water. Although, the idea of this technology had been reviewed for many years, it was never actualized. INKMAX was the first to actualize this technology by developing special ink. This technology reduces use of water by 95 percent and emission of CO2 gas by 40 percent compared to the conventional dyeing process. This project has just been launched with some dyeing and fabric mills this year and is being highly appreciated.