21.   But among Japanese firms that are not trading houses, all the personnel of Toyota Peru and Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co. are still being held hostage.

22.   But the Japanese firm never came, leaving the island empty save for some small domestic firms and an aluminum smelter being built by an Iranian expatriate.

23.   But this pattern will change as Japanese firms upgrade the role of these facilities.

24.   By developing cleaner, greener technologies, they say, Japanese firms can foster yet another world-beating industry and sell their innovations abroad.

25.   By using subsidiaries, Japanese insurance firms plan to enter the third sector market -- insurance policies covering illness, accidents and nursing care.

26.   Commissions were deregulated last fall, leading to price cuts, and foreign financial services companies and online trading firms have given the Japanese firms stiff competition.

27.   Concern that Asian demand could decline mounted last week after Toshoku Ltd., a Japanese trading firm, sought protection from creditors.

28.   Contracting could also pose problems for European and Japanese firms, which tend to have a strong manufacturing culture.

29.   Despite what Japanese firms claim about their non-relationship with the zaibatsu, the postwar break was by no means complete.

30.   Even before the Asian crisis, however, Lam had been losing market share to competitors such as Applied Materials and a Japanese firm called TEL.