Hiroshi Izumikawa

Commitment of the Dutch colonial company in Japan-Indonesian trade in 1930s.

In 1930s, trade between Japan and colonial Indonesia had emerged, mainly because of the Great Depression in 1929. Especially, textile was mainly imported from Osaka by several business groups. Among them, one of Dutch company, Borsumij, became one of the most influential counterpart in import from Japan, which enabled her to commit the trade policy-making of colonial government. Although this company was found in several archives including Dutch and Japanese and now became the global company known as Borsumij Wehry, the history has rarely been focused by Indonesian economic historian. Based on the Javanese Bank archives and colonial archives of Netherland, I would like to describe how the Borsumij could achieve the access of textile as the global commodity in 1920s and 1930s.