BookTitleToyota Tsusho 70-Year History

Summary

Toyota Tsusho 70-Year History

Early HistoryTransition from a FinanceCompany to a TradingCompany, 1936-1947Toyota Tsusho Corporation has its roots in Toyota Kinyu, which was established in 1936. This wasa finance company founded for the purpose of selling and popularizing domestically producedautomobiles. But if we were to follow the roots to the source, we would arrive at Sakichi Toyoda,known as the King of Japanese Inventors for his work on looms.With the intention of furthering industrial patriotism, Sakichi devoted his life to loom invention. Heinvented what is said to have been at the time the world’s best automatic loom, the Type G AutomaticLoom. At the same time, he established the Toyoda Loom Co. and the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works,Ltd., and turned them into successful businesses.Sakichi laid the foundations for his eldest son, Kiichiro, to take on the challenge of the automobilebusiness. Sakichi possessed the qualities of an international businessman, and established a spinningfactory in Shanghai, China. His commitment to originality as an inventor, his desire for new businesses,his interest in foreign countries, and his spirit, which couldn’t be crushed in adverse circumstances, liveon today in the Toyota Group companies, including Toyota Tsusho.Trace the history of Toyota Tsusho as it faced the great upheavals of the times: the Great KantoEarthquake; Taisho democracy; the Showa era financial panic; the Sino-Japanese war; the Pacific War;the War’s conclusion; and the postwar recovery.History33