17 Fukuoka Now #144 December 2010
Kyushu Headline NewsEnglish language summaries of last month's
top Kyushu area news stories. 1
Saga to Solicit Low-Cost Chinese AirlinesSaga Prefecture Gov.
Yasushi Furukawa re-vealed at a press conference that the
prefecture is working to attract low-cost carriers to use the
prefecture-operated Saga Airport, a perennial money-loser. The
prefecture government is concerned about traffic and revenue
because ANA will discontinue its roundtrip flights from the airport
to Osaka in January. The governor said he began negotiations with
Shanghai-based Spring Airlines last month in that city.
3 Companies to Accept South Korean InternsThe Education
Committee of South Koreas Chungcheongnam Province asked Chukeikyo,
an association of small and medium-sized busi-ness executives in
Fukuoka Prefecture, to ac-cept six high school students from that
country in their internship program, and the Fukuoka Group agreed.
The six students will work part time at local companies while going
to school to gain work experience and focus on their ca-reer goals.
The South Korean province has been conducting the overseas
internship program since 2008, and this is the first time students
will be sent to Japan.
7 Governors Set Seven-Prefecture Adminis-trative MechanismWith
the national government mulling the elimination of local offices
for government ministries and agencies and transferring their
responsibilities to sub-national governments, the Kyushu Governors
Council agreed to estab-lish an administrative mechanism for the
seven prefectures in the region. They will petition the national
government to create the legal frame-work required to implement
their plan. If the national government takes that step, the
offices, authority, funding sources, and employees for 15 agencies
in eight ministries will be transferred nearly intact. Duties
related to national taxation and defense will not be affected.
Kyushu Bioindustry Group Forms Ties With FrenchThe Kyushu Bureau
of Economy, Trade, and Industry announced that the Kyushu Regional
Biocluster Promotional Council, a group for de-veloping the
regional biotech industry consist-ing of representatives from
industry, academia, and government, has signed a memorandum of
understanding with the F2C Innovation, a French agri-food super
cluster, for exchanging information and technology in the food
prod-uct and biotech sector. The agreement is the first of its kind
for the Kyushu group, and it was signed at the suggestion of the
French group.
They are impressed by the safety and high quality of the primary
agricultural products and food products from Kyushu,
First Wine to be Made in MiyakonojoMiyakonojo Winery Farm, an
agricultural com-pany formed to produce wine using grapes grown in
Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture, began the process of making its
first wine this month. The company receives technical advice from
specialists at the Miyakonojo National Col-lege of Technology. They
will handle all the op-erations from production to sales, and plan
on selling 6,000 bottles from the end of November to next
spring.
4 Shinkansen to have Four Osaka-Kagoshima Daily TripsJR Kyushu
and JR West announced they will operate four daily roundtrips on
the Shinkansen between Osaka and Kagoshima when the Kyushu
Shinkansen begins service next March. The total trip will take
three hours and 45 minutes. The train will stop at Osaka, Kobe,
Okayama, Hiroshima, Kokura, Hakata, Kumamoto, and Kagoshima.
Yahoo Subsidiary Opens Calls Center in KitakyushuYahoo Customer
Relations, a wholly owned subsidiary of Yahoo! Japan, opened a call
center in Kitakyushu. It is their third call center, joining ones
in Kochi and Oita, and has 180 employees. They plan on expanding to
300 employees in three years.
17.2% 4% Admissions Climb at Huis ten BoschSince becoming a
subsidiary of travel agency HIS in April, the Sasebo, Nagasaki
Prefecture resort Huis ten Bosch has achieved a recovery in both
admissions and sales in the first half of the current fiscal year.
Theyve been particularly successful in attracting middle-aged and
elderly customers, which had been their weakness, by sponsoring
such events as the Gardening World Cup. Merchandise and eating and
drinking place sales are climbing as a result. They posted a 17.2%
year-on-year rise in admissions and a 4% increase in revenue during
the first half.
Bridgestone to Expand Kitakyushu, Saga PlantsBridgestone
released its mid-term business plan for the next five years, which
calls for an expan-sion of its Kitakyushu factory to manufacture
extra-large radial tires used for construction and mine excavation
vehicles, for which demand is
expected to rise. When the expansion is com-pleted, capacity
will have been boosted by four times. They also plan to increase
production capacity at their Saga plant, which manufactures steel
cords for their tires.
Extravagant Weddings the Trend in KyushuZexy, a magazine
providing wedding informa-tion published by Recruit, released the
results of its survey of wedding ceremony trends for 2009. The
average cost of a Kyushu wedding rose 26,000 yen from the previous
year to 3.462 million yen. That is roughly 200,000 yen more than
the national average, which fell about 50,000 yen from the previous
year.
3 Izutsu-ya Turns First Profit in Three YearsKitakyushu-based
Izutsu-ya released its interim consolidated report showing it
earned 1.154 billion yen in current profit during the first half, a
sharp increase from the 1.69 billion yen loss of last year. They
also posted 1.140 billion in net profit, up from last years 563
million yen loss. It was the first time in three years the
department store recorded profits in these categories. They managed
to achieve profitability despite a 9.1% drop in sales during the
same period to 140 bil-lion yen, the second straight annual sales
decline for the company. One reason cited for the profit gains was
that the company slashed 30% of its workforce as part of its new
three-year plan.
Excess Hydrogen to be Used for Home Power GenerationThe hydrogen
created as a byproduct at Nip-pon Steel Corp.s Yahata Plant in
Kitakyushu will be used in fuel cells that do not emit CO2. Those
fuel cells will in turn be used by Shin Nippon Homes and an NPO in
a business en-terprise for power generation in a seven-unit
apartment house currently under construction in the city. It is the
first time in Japan for hydro-gen from a factory to be reused to
generate power in a residential unit. Occupancy of the apartments
could begin as early as this year.
Kyushu Electric Establishes Presence in TaiwanKyushu Electric
Power revealed that they have purchased a 33.2% stake in a
Taiwan-based in-dependent power producer from the Marubeni Corp.,
which had an 83.2% share in the compa-ny. This is the sixth country
or territory outside of Japan in which Kyushu Electric has made an
investment. They are also the fourth Japanese power company to take
an ownership share of an independent power producer in Taiwan.
News source: With permission from the morning editions of the
Nishinippon Newspaper.
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