Industry Association Act (産業組合法)
Industry Association Act was the Japanese law which existed before. It is known as an epoch-making law that made rules about a cooperative association for the first time in Asia. Yajiro SHINAGAWA and Tosuke HIRATA were busily engaged in legislation.
The act was passed in 1990, and in order to help small enterprises, it was established as a law which had principles of cooperative association such as freedom of entering and leaving, the equal voting right, restraint of investing interest, and the dividend in accordance with the amount of use, under the circumstances in which tiny, small and medium enterprises were getting overwhelmed by big capitals as the Japanese capitalism grew.
The present Japan Agricultural Cooperatives, a consumer cooperative, credit union, and credit cooperative all have their roots in the Industry Association before the war.