While working as a trading company (shosha) employee traveling the world, I came to realize that shoshas are really needed for small and medium enterprises and founded HISHINUMA TRADING. During the early days, we engaged in OEM production in East Asian and ASEAN countries and purchases of products from European companies. In anticipation of a shrunken Japanese economy, we created a platform named JAPAND as a way to make the future brighter for small and medium enterprises that had a sense of crisis and have proposed that they turn to exports and have provided support to them.
COVID-19 reminded me that my perception at that time had been right and I became eager to provide small and medium enterprises with something absolutely necessary for their overseas operations. With help from many people, my eagerness materialized in the form of ‘Plus 1 Service’.

Have you heard of the ‘Year 2060 problem’? There is no such term yet, but according to David Atkinson’s Nihonjin no shosan (Japanese People’s Chances of Winning), the population of Japan will decrease by roughly as much as 32.1% to 86.74 million with elderly people accounting for some 40% of the total population in 2060. There are many countries in which the population is expected to age, but only Japan is projected to go through such a huge drop in population. In that sense, I view the Year 2060 problem as a huge challenge. As part of efforts to address it as a trading company, we will give full support to Japanese small and medium enterprises’ exports with Japan, Singapore, and the UK offices joining forces. We are considering establishing other offices in ASEAN and European countries and the US in the future.
If you have the slightest sense of crisis about your company’s future, please contact us. Let’s embark on the world together utilizing Plus 1 Service.