What is a trading company?

The trading company enterprise group is a huge economic entity which is composed of a number of enterprises that maintain the status of legal persons, integrates production, circulation, finance and technology, and carries out unified management for the implementation of the same market management strategy. Generally, it consists of a tight core group, and semi-tight layers, loose layers and related layers around the tight core group. A compact core group is an economic union in which several powerful large enterprises hold shares with each other and form interests and interests in capital and assets. The semi-tight layer consists of subsidiaries or branches of major enterprises that constitute the core group. The loose layer consists of many small and medium-sized enterprises, whose subsidiaries (or branches) are controlled by members of the core group. The association layer consists of enterprise cooperation units in the core layer, semi-tight layer and loose layer of the group.

Founded in Japan, comprehensive trading company refers to an international, industrialized, diversified and collectivized comprehensive commercial organization with commercial functions as the leading factor and integrating financial, information, service and organizational functions.

The comprehensive trading company, the core enterprise of the Japanese consortium, plays the most important role in this battle for "commercial rights". The comprehensive trading company plays a special role in trade, investment, finance, talents, information and logistics, and has essentially become the economic general staff within the consortium and even in Japanese society. In the process of overseas expansion of Japanese enterprises, the comprehensive trading company must be the first to enter a certain market. One of its most important functions is to open up local "commercial routes", then control "commercial rights" and open the way for manufacturing enterprises to enter.

Take Mitsui & Co., the largest comprehensive trading company in Japan as an example. Since entering China in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the total investment of Mitsui & Co., Ltd. has reached about US$ 400 million, with 65,438+052 enterprises participating in the investment, but its business volume in China only accounts for about 8% of its global business volume. For a multinational giant like Mitsui & Co., the investment of $400 million is obviously not very big. And a large trading company like Mitsui & Co., Ltd. is actually an investment amplifier. Direct investment of 400 million US dollars can at least drive investment of 4 billion US dollars. Mitsui & Co., Ltd. has its own unique investment model, and there are few projects in the world that it 100% invests in. Most projects are invested by their member companies.

Mitsui & Co., Ltd. basically does not have its own brand products, but there are many world-class large enterprises in the group. Toyota, Toshiba and other Japanese multinational companies are all members of Mitsui Consortium, and Mitsui even regards large companies outside Japan, such as American General Motors and China Baosteel, as its own member units. Investment in Europe and America is often made through direct investment or capital cultivation. Mitsui's investment in enterprises is completely different from that of European and American financial institutions. Mitsui & Co., Ltd. rarely controls its investment and often invests with its member enterprises. Mitsui & Co., Ltd. pays more attention to establishing business partnership with enterprises, and its investment is often long-term and strategic. For the investment of Mitsui & Co., Ltd., profit is the second, and establishing long-term partnership is the most important, because their return on investment is also long-term or indirect.