Articles
How Japan's rules for exhibition cargo came to be.
About these articles
These are English versions of posts first written in Japanese, chosen from the ones about how things work in Japan: bonded exhibition sites, customs procedure, ATA Carnets. I use these systems every day on the job, and at some point realised I was using them without knowing why they took the shape they have. That is what started the writing.
About the author
I am Shin Sasaki. From 2004 I handled international logistics as an employee at the Tokyo office of an international exhibition design company, and worked on site at the Olympics and at motor shows. Since going independent in 2011 I have kept sending exhibits to the major venues of Europe, the Americas and Asia, and I still go to the sites myself.
Cargo for an Olympic venue and a production car for a motor show have one thing in common: the deadline does not move. Most of my time has gone not into the transport itself but into the decisions around it — carnet or ordinary import, which terms to accept, and who to call with what when something stops on the other side.
Why Japan Has Bonded Exhibition Sites — The Customs Rule Written to Make an Expo Ground "Foreign"
In 1967, three years before its first World Expo, Japan created the bonded exhibition site. Until then, international trade fairs had been run on the rules for bonded warehouses. Following the Diet record, this traces why the system was made, the 1973 relaxation, and how far it has since spread — the Tokyo Motor Show, an art fair in Yokohama, and an Expo ground licensed for 883,234 square metres over three years.