Back in the day, this used to be Japan's pride and joy. It's the electronic industry, making televisions, video cameras, laptops, computers. Keep in mind many would argue that before Apple took over, it was actually Sony that was the king of all things cool.

The Walkmen are gone but you can still get a Sony Discman for about 45 US dollars. But it is very tough times for these once corporate giants here in Japan and 2012 will be a year that they would like to erase from their memories. Sony and Panasonic, once industry leaders, saw their ratings cut to junk status by one ratings agency in November. Sony shares have fallen about 33% this year. But the company is now betting its stock on a new CEO.

By overcoming the difficulty Sony faces and accomplishing the reforms, we as a representative of Japanese companies, would like to play a part in increasing the presence of Japan in global competition.

Panasonic shares are down about 25%. And then there is Sharp, which has been one of Japan's worst performing stocks over the last 12 months. But it has crawled its way back lately on reports that it may work with Apple on Apple TV. A bit of irony perhaps is Apple is of course the company that many points view as the one that knocked the Japanese corporates off their perch. When you added it all up for Sony, Panasonic and Sharp according to one report this year from the Economist magazine, those three companies lost more money in the last five years, about 44 billion US dollars, than they saw in profits over the last 20 years. Clearly, we will be watching in 2013.