Warren Buffett is right to be 'proud' of Japan's trading companies

'Sogo shosha' have become key players in supply chain transformation

Mitsuru Claire Chino

October 2, 2023 05:00 JST

Warren Buffett has taken significant stakes in five of the largest sogo shosha, helping push the Nikkei 225 index back to a level unseen in decades. (Nikkei montage)

Mitsuru Claire Chino is managing executive officer at Itochu.

For years, many in Japan saw the country's general trading companies, known as sogo shosha, as obsolete artifacts of a bygone era in the country's economic development.