History of Nichimen Corporation

After the Meiji Restoration, large quantities of cotton yarn and cloth were imported from abroad as part of the overall "civilization and enlightenment" tendency of the times, which led to Japan's having a chronic trade deficit.

From about 1878 onwards, the Japanese Government began actively promoting a domestic cotton-spinning business by taking measures to modernize spinning equipment in Japan. Spinning production then rose by leaps and bounds, and cotton-spinning grew to become one of the major industries of the country. Meanwhile, raw cotton available in Japan was in short supply and could hardly meet the rapidly increasing demand. The shortage had to be compensated by imports. As foreign-made raw cotton was generally superior in quality to the local type, more and more quantities of raw cotton were imported first from China and then from India. Finally, raw cotton of even better quality was imported from the USA.

In those days, however, there was only one importer handling raw cotton, and the Japanese cotton-spinning industry had virtually no choice than to rely on foreign merchants. Some of these foreign merchants turned out to be crooked enough to pocket an outrageous profit by taking advantage of the fact that Japanese importers had little access to foreign market information and, before long, the Japanese cotton-spinning industry that was only beginning to develop was dragged into great financial difficulties. Alarmed by this situation, some members representing cotton-spinning companies in Osaka started to work together towards establishment of a trading company directly import raw cotton. In October of 1891, a total of 25 promoters led by the senior management members of four leading Osaka-based spinning companies submitted a petition for establishment of "Nippon Menkwa Kabushiki Kaisha" (Japan Cotton Trading Co., Ltd) to the Governor of Osaka Prefecture.

The gubernatorial approval was granted in October of 1892, and the general meeting for the establishment of the company was convened on the 10th of November that year. Tsuneki Sano, a former government official who was 38 years of age at that time, was elected as the first president, and its initial Head Office was established in Utsubo-Kitadori 4-chome, Nishi-ku, Osaka. Thus, Nippon Menkwa Kabushiki Kaisha, the predecessor of Nichimen Corporation, was born.