International trade, production chains and corporate strategies: Japan's timber trade with British Columbia

This paper discusses the construct of the production chain as a way of understanding the dynamics of regional development within a global economy. The production chain concept is developed as a set of integrated production, trade and service functions which add value to particular products to explicitly incorporate organizational and geographical structures from the perspective of processes of internationalization. The paper argues that the struggles that occur between corporations along internationally defined production chains complement trade relations and tensions among countries and exert important impacts on local development. Empirically, the paper analyses the British Columbia-Japan timber supply production chain, which in the last 25 years has experienced significant changes in size, composition and organization. Some implications for local development in British Columbia are noted.