Government-industry cooperation, a strong work ethic, mastery of high technology, and a comparatively small defence allocation (1% of GDP)

have helped Japan advance with extraordinary rapidity to the rank of second most technologically powerful economy in the world after the US and third largest economy in the world after the US and China. One notable characteristic of the economy is the working together of manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors in closely-knit groups called keiretsu. A second basic feature has been the guarantee of lifetime employment for a substantial portion of the urban labor force. Both features are now eroding. Industry, the most important sector of the economy, is heavily dependent on imported raw materials and fuels. The much smaller agricultural sector is highly subsidized and protected, with crop yields among the highest in the world. Usually self-sufficient in rice, Japan must import about 50% of its requirements of other grain and fodder crops. Japan maintains one of the world's largest fishing fleets and accounts for nearly 15% of the global catch. For three decades overall real economic growth had been spectacular: a 10% average in the 1960s, a 5% average in the 1970s, and a 4% average in the 1980s. Growth slowed markedly in the 1990s largely because of the aftereffects of overinvestment during the late 1980s and contractionary domestic policies intended to wring speculative excesses from the stock and real estate markets. Government efforts to revive economic growth have met with little success and were further hampered in 2000-02 by the slowing of the US and Asian economies. The crowding of habitable land area and the aging of the population are two major long-run problems. Robotics constitutes a key long-term economic strength, with Japan possessing 410,000 of the world's 720,000 "working robots". Internal conflict over the proper means to reform the ailing banking system will continue in 2003.

The word Shinto, which is often translated as the way of the gods, is written with two Chinese characters The first character which great great grandson of Amaterasu Omikami is said to be Emperor Jimmu, the legendary first sovereign of Japan. The absence of official sacred scriptures in Shinto reflects the religions lack of moral commandments. Instead, Shinto emphasizes ritual purity and cleanliness in ones dealings with the kami. Chinese characters. The first character, which is pronounced kami when used alone, means god, deity, or divine power, and the second character means way or path. With the introduction of the paddy-field system during the Yayoi period (300 BCAD 300), the agricultural rituals and festivals that later became part of Shinto began to develop. Although t h e w o rd kami c a n b e u s e d to Originating in India around the 5th century BC, Buddhism spread through China in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, and finally reached refer to a single god, it is also used as the collective term for the myriad gods which have been the central objects of worship in Japan from as far back as the Yayoi period. The kami are part of all aspects of life and

manifest themselves in various forms. There are nature kami that reside in sacred stones, trees, mountains, and other natural (Chronicles of Japan), in 712 and 720, respectively. In tracing the imperial line back was introduced by Kukai (774 835), who is also known as Kobo Daishi. These two esoteric sects came to be the most important Buddhist sects at the imperial court. In the Kamakura period (11851333), two respectively. In tracing the imperial line back to the mythical age of the gods, these books tell how the kami Izanagi and Izanami produced the Japanese islands and the central gods Amaterasu Omikami (sun