Oct 2009 Fukuoka Now

Fukuoka Now #130 October 2009

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Kyushu Headline News English language summaries of last month's top Kyushu area news stories. 九州エリアの 1 ヵ月分の英文ニュースの中から選り抜きの話題をピックアップ 格安レンタカー九州「快走」

Inexpensive Used Car Rental Business Booming Inexpensive car rental chains offering used cars are thriving in all Kyushu prefectures. Some even have deals with gas stations to cut costs, and the cars can be rented there. In some cases, the total cost to the customer is half that of outlets that rent new cars. 福岡―釜山、空の便 1 日 4 往復に

ment conducted a joint census of people in the fisheries industry for 2008, which revealed a decline of 3.9% to 6,147 people engaged in that occupation from the previous survey in 2003.

This is the lowest number of people working in the sector since surveys began in 1949. The surveys are conducted once every five years, and there has been a steady decline in each one since the one held in 1973.

New Korean Airline Offers Busan-Fukuoka Flights Air Busan, a new airline based in that South Korean city, announced plans to offer round trip service between Busan and Fukuoka City as its first international flight. They hope to begin operating one round trip flight by next March, and plan to charge 20% less for seats than their domestic competitors KAL and Asiana on the same route. When the airline begins service to Fukuoka City, it will bring the total number of daily round trip flights between the two cities to four.

焼酎出荷量 2 年連続減

福岡―広島 2,000 円バス

九州の県都・指令 8 市、就学援助、最高の 15.8%

Fukuoka-Hiroshima by Bus JR Kyushu Bus Co. and three other local bus companies announced they will begin selling 10 seats on their express buses for the one-way trip to Hiroshima for 2,000 yen—half-price. The seats must be purchased in advance, and the offer will last only from September 19 to the end of November. The move is part of the company’s effort to compete with the reduction of highway tolls to 1,000 yen.

Benefits for Students Hits Record High The Nishinippon Shimbun conducted a survey of municipal government financial assistance to individual primary school and junior high school students in the Kyushu prefectural capitals and eight designated cities with enhanced authority as of May this year. The survey found that the financial assistance, which alleviates the burden of expenditures for such items as school supplies, meals, and school trips, was provided to 15.8% of the students, the highest percentage ever. Those students whose families are already receiving welfare payments were not included. The totals for both Fukuoka and Nagasaki prefectures exceeded 20%.

九州北部にお天気新型レーダー

New Weather Radar Stations The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport will install four new, high-performance weather radar stations in northern Kyushu in FY 2010 to deal with the recent increase in more intense storms. Conventional stations can survey up to one kilometer in four directions every five minutes, but the new stations can survey at a distance of 250-500 meters in four directions every minute. In addition to monitoring the shape of the raindrops, the stations reduce the time differential between observation and announcement from 5-10 minutes to 1-2 minutes. 釜山と北九州、IT 協定締結

Kitakyushu and Busan Sign IT Agreement Public sector organizations and IT corporate groups in Kitakyushu and Busan, South Korea, signed agreements to promote cooperation in the IT sector. The public sector agreement will promote information sharing and create a mechanism for information sharing, while the private sector agreement will publicize each other’s products and create new sales channels.

The signatories said they hope the agreements will create a new business model for the region. 漁業就業者数が最低に

Fisheries Employ All-Time Low Fukuoka Prefecture and the Japanese govern-

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Kagoshima Shochu Shipments Down A federation of shochu distillers in Kagoshima Prefecture revealed that shipments of shochu from local companies in the business year from July 2008 to June 2009 fell 1.7% from the previous year to 149,500 kiloliters. It is the second consecutive annual decline after nine straight years of growth. The federation attributed the decline to rising prices and concerns about the safety of rice used in the rice-based varieties.

昭和シェル、宮崎に太陽電池新工場

New Solar Cell Plant in Miyazaki Showa Shell Sekiyu said it had purchased property in Kunitomi-cho, Miyazaki Prefecture, to build one of the largest solar cell plants in Japan. They plan to invest about 100 billion yen and have the plant in operation by mid-2011.

The plant will employ 800 people, and the company will hire at least 400 new people for its operation. 福岡経済界、HTB 再建を支援せず

No Bail Out for Huis ten Bosch At a conference earlier this week between officials from large Fukuoka businesses, including JR Kyushu and Kyushu Electric Power, and the Huis ten Bosch resort in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, it was revealed that a decision about possible companies to financially rescue the ailing resort will be postponed until the end of September. If no new company is willing to help, the primary regional businesses will not provide any funds.

HTB’s parent company, Nomura Principal Finance, did not even send a representative.

Fukuoka Now #130 October 2009

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西シ銀が証券子会社

Bank Establishes Securities Subsidiary The Nishi-Nippon City Bank announced it will create a securities subsidiary jointly with Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings Inc. The bank’s objective is to expand its business by offering services to invest the assets of individuals and to act as a stock brokerage. The bank says it is the first regional bank in Kyushu to form a securities subsidiary. ニモカ、全路線バスへの導入完了へ

All Nishitetsu Buses Accept nimoca Fukuoka City-based Nishi-Nippon Railroad (Nishitetsu) announced that all of the route buses operated by the Nishitetsu Group now accept the contactless payment card nimoca.

This is a total of roughly 2,400 buses on 210 routes. As of the end of August, about 370,000 nimoca cards have been issued. 三菱重工業、長崎造船に電池工業

Lithium Ion Battery Production in Kyushu Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced they will establish Kyushu’s first plant to produce lithium ion batteries on the grounds of their Nagasaki shipyard. They plan to invest about 10 billion yen in capital and begin production in the fall of 2010. The company anticipates annual production at the plant to total 400,000 units. 熊本県酪連、ベトナムに牛乳輸出へ

Kumamoto to Export Milk to Vietnam The Kumamoto Prefecture Federation of Dairy Industry Cooperatives said they plan to export milk this year to meet the growing demand for the beverage in that country. The exports will be conducted in partnership with Vietnamese breweries. If the plans go through, it will be the first milk exports to that country from Japan. 北九州市、卸売市場に暴追条例

Gang-Related Businesses out of Wholesale Market In an effort to stem crimes committed by criminal gangs, the city of Kitakyushu will present legislation in September to prevent firms with ties to those gangs from doing business in the city’s Central Wholesale Market. A similar measure was passed last year in Tokyo. Fukuoka City also plans to introduce legislation of the same type in September, so the two cities will be the first in Kyushu with laws of this type. As of this April a total of 741 companies handling produce and maritime products do business in the Kitakyushu market.

TOTO、大分工業のライン縮小

Toto Cutting Back Kitakyushu-based Toto announced it will transfer some of the production lines making water faucets at its Oita plant to its plant in Kokura, Kitakyushu, by next March. The company wants to consolidate production now that its rate of operation is at roughly 80% due to the economic downturn. In conjunction with the

九州ニュース

move, the company will not renew the contracts of 160 seconded workers. 民主、九州も第一党

DPJ Now Strongest Party in Kyushu The results of the landslide victory by the Democratic Party of Japan in the recent lower house elections means that the party has for the first time won the most number of seats in the 38 direct-election districts in Kyushu and Okinawa Prefecture. It won 20 of the 28 seats it directly contested with the former ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the LDP lost all the seats in Nagasaki, Oita, and Okinawa Prefectures for the first time. 「門司ライン」廃業

Moji-Busan Ferry Service Ended C&Cruise of Busan, South Korea, announced it would end service on the currently suspended ferry line between that city and the Port of Moji in Kitakyushu. After the company suspended service on the line in June 2008, engine breakdowns on the ships and other problems prevented its resumption.

The company planned to resume service, but the poor business performance caused by the economic downturn has resulted in a cash shortage.

天神に中国語標識

Chinese Language Signs in Tenjin Fukuoka City has started installing Chineselanguage information signs in the city’s Tenjin district, the largest commercial area in Kyushu.

The objective is to make Chinese tourists feel more comfortable. There has been an upsurge in Chinese tourism to the city with the increase in cruise ships calling on the Port of Hakata, and the elimination of visa requirements for some Chinese tourists to Japan in July. The signs are being installed in 55 locations in Tenjin. 福岡―ハノイ就航

Fukuoka – Hanoi Flights Announced Vietnam Airlines will begin operating two round-trip flights a week from Hanoi to Fukuoka on October 10, it was announced. The airline already operates three weekly flights to Fukuoka from Ho Chi Minh City, but one of those flights will be eliminated. The flights to Hanoi will be on Tuesdays and Saturdays and take three hours and 50 minutes. ベスト電器の海外子会社、現地企業と資本提携へ

Best Denki Overseas Subsidiaries The Taiwan and Singapore subsidiaries of Fukuoka City-based mass merchandiser Best

Denki are planning capital partnerships with local companies. The Taiwan subsidiary, which is not a consolidated subsidiary, will have a majority of its shares purchased by a local electronics firm named Action Co. Meanwhile 49% of the stock of the company’s Singapore subsidiary will be transferred to a subsidiary of Indonesian consumer electronics mass merchandiser Bangun Persada. 西シ銀が環境応援融資

Special Financing for Environmental Projects The Fukuoka City-based Nishi-Nippon City Bank has begun a program of providing loans with favorable interest rates for such environmental projects as the corporate purchase of energysaving equipment. The bank plans to expand the program next April when new energy conservation laws take effect and offer loans with preferential interest rates to larger retail stores, hotels, hospitals, and office buildings. Companies will be required to cut average annual energy use by at least 1% from the FY 2009 base in the future, so the bank sees the potential to increase its loan portfolio.

News source: With permission from the morning editions of the Nishinippon Newspaper.

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