Japanese Report: Key Japanese Companies Were Not Interested in Exporting the Soryu

A Soryu submarine (left) and Oyashio class sub (right) are serviced at KHI's Kobe (Japan) submarine yard (Photo courtesy Kenichirou Akiyama in his Diamond Report, page 2).

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On June 22, 2015 a freelance journalist, Kenichiro Akiyama, in Diamond (one of Japan’s leading economic magazines) published an insider Report (at http://diamond.jp/articles/-/73594 ) detailing the lack of interest from Japanese arms companies in exporting submarines.

As this is a Japanese Report and was written 10 months before Australia announced the winning bid this Report has considerable significance.

It is likely that Australia Future Submarine CEP assessors, after reading this Report in June 2015, began to suspect a lack of Japanese corporate interest in being involved in the export of Soryu submarines to Australia.

A very brief translation of this Japanese language Report http://diamond.jp/articles/-/73594 is:

“THE REASON WHY THE [JAPANESE] DEFENSE INDUSTRY IS APATHETIC ABOUT LONG-SOUGHT ARMS EXPORTS”

A senior manager whose company produces submarines has explained that Japan’s arms export industry has not had to face international competition for many years. In May 2015 the Japanese Government made a firm decision to participate in the campaign to sell the technically advanced Soryu submarine to Australia.

But, surprisingly, the responses from defence companies was far from enthusiastic. In particular, MHI and KHI’s submarine sectors were not enthusiastic. This lack of enthusiasm was apparent in three ways: 

"First reason is" building submarines for export is "unprofitable"

"The second reason is a lack of capacity" in terms of as manpower and equipment/facilities, and

"Third, this is not a story limited to the submarine," which is a the military industrial market is shrinking.

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Overall the Japanese defence industrial feeling appeared to be negative. Industries seemed to think that the weapon export activity was cumbersome.

As English speakers translating the Report (by Right-Clicking Mouse then “Translate to English”) can see there is much more of interest in the Japanese Diamond Report.

Pete