insurance company before the end of the year to offer insurance products to corporate customers.

A spokesman for Sumitomo said a joint venture, to be capitalised at $1 million, will be 90 percent owned by Sumitomo and ten percent by the Tokyo venture firm, New Network Insurance.

The spokesman added the new insurer will offer cut-rate fire and damage insurance policies backed by reinsurance taken out in "overseas'' insurance markets.

The firm will aim for annual revenues of one billion yen (nearly $8.3 million) from insurance premiums after three years.

With head offices in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, Sumitomo Corp. is an integrated trading company (or sogo shosha) made up of more than 600 companies and had capital at April 1 of $1.3 billion and turnover of about $95 billion.

Celebrating its 50th year, the company has put a $2.36-billion net loss for fiscal 1997 behind them, which had resulted from troubling unauthorised copper trading.

In the company's last annual report, president Kenji Miyahara said Sumitomo Corp. was striving to become a completely integrated business enterprise, acting and thinking globally.

"To achieve this goal and to meet the changing and ever more diverse needs of the public we serve,'' he said, "we have been going beyond our traditional expertise in global trade to become involved in new areas of business by making direct investments.'' As part of its strategy for capitalising on Japan's financial "Big Bang'', the company agreed with Zurich Insurance Company's Japanese firm recently to launch a risk financing service for Japanese companies.

The new venture is analysing clients' business risks, proposing optimal combinations of various types of insurance and other "Alternative Risk Transfer'' methods, offering the most advanced solutions and providing support to help them establish their own captive insurance operations.

Regular, ongoing consulting services will be provided by Sumitomo Corp.'s subsidiary, Bluewell Insurance Brokers Ltd.

One example of Sumitomo's increasing globalisation was a 24-strong company delegation that conducted a "business mission'' to Central Asia.

The Japanese Government began providing Official Development Assistance several years ago to nations such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyz after the collapse of the former Soviet Empire -- nations that were struggling in their move toward market economies.

Sumitomo is supplementing the effort by developing several projects for funding from ODA and the Export-Import Bank of Japan.