Japan: Two for Hitachi

Hitachi, Ltd., the Japanese electrical giant that is equally adept at making tiny transistor radios and huge hydroelectric generators, last week gave the U.S. electrical industry a stinging lesson in how to get U.S. Government contracts. Hitachi won a $612,659 contract to build two 4,500-h.p. hydraulic turbines for the Interior Department’s Blue Mesa power plant in Colorado, and another $3,221,813 contract to supply eight pump turbines for a federal reclamation project in California’s San Joaquin valley. It won the awards simply because its bids ranged from 5% to 41% lower than those of such competing U.S. giants as Allis-Chalmers and Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. Hitachi, whose sales in the past five years have increased 280% to last year’s $1 billion, thus made an important advance in its drive to excel in highly industrialized markets.