Jun 2010 Fukuoka Now

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Kyushu Headline News

Get Kyushu News Now!

キュウシュウヘッドラインニュース無料配信 !

Mobile phone: http://www.fukuoka-now.com/mobile HP: www.fukuoka-now.com/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

イオン九州、上場来初の減収

タクシー 7,000 台に外国人客向け指差しマップ

井筒屋、売り上げ高 22% 減、746 億円

Aeon Kyushu Revenue Decline

Taxi Maps for Foreigners

Izutsuya Profits Plunge

Fukuoka City-based Aeon Kyushu announced that non-consolidated sales for the year ended February 2010 fell 3.7% from the yearbefore period to 258.9 billion yen. This was the company’s first revenue decline since their stock was publicly offered in 2000. The decline was attributed to lower customer unit prices and the drop in consumer purchases caused by the economic downturn. Current profit, however, rose 15.4% to 437 million yen.

In response to the increase in foreign tourists locally, the Fukuoka City Taxicab Association, along with local publisher Fukuoka Now, has created a map of areas of interest in the central part of the city, plus handy words and phrases, in English, Korean, and Japanese. The objective is to have the tourists enjoy their stay in the city and use more taxicabs. The maps were distributed to taxi companies in May, and placed in 7,000 cabs in the urban area.

発泡酒 マンゴーラガー発売

福岡倉庫、中国に子会社、アジアで引越し事業強化

Local department store company Izutsuya, currently restructuring its business, reported sales of 74.6 billion yen for the fiscal year ended in February 2010, a 22% decline. The company has also formulated a new mid-term business plan for the next three fiscal years to cope with a harsh business climate with stagnant consumption and to confront the opening of the Hakata Hankyu department store in the new Hakata Station building next year. The company hopes to create a structure capable of stable profit even if consumption continues to decline.

Miyazaki Mango Lager

Fukuoka Soko Asian Subsidiaries

Hideji Beer, a microbrewery in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture, has launched sales of a low-malt beer it calls Mango Lager. The beer is brewed using yeast cultured from the skins of mangoes, A speciality of the prefecture. The fruit itself is also used as an ingredient, which is why it has been classified as a low-malt beer.

The company is experimenting with yeast from 80 different types of fruit with Miyazaki University, and Mango Lager took three years to develop. A 330 milliliter bottle costs 600 yen.

Fukuoka City-based transport and moving company Fukuoka Soko has been establishing subsidiaries for the commercial moving business with a focus on China. The objective is to accelerate corporate growth while business is down in Japan. The company set up a subsidiary in Shanghai in January with a branch in Beijing. They also converted their local operations in Vietnam to a subsidiary last July.

These overseas operations currently account for 20% of overall revenue.

九大が起業家養成

鳥類保全 博多湾全体で

Kyushu University Entrepreneur Center

Island City Bird Sanctuary

Kyushu University announced it will open an Entrepreneurship Center this year with the objective of inculcating the entrepreneurial spirit in students and providing instruction and guidance for starting and operating businesses.

It will also offer classes in entrepreneurship starting in the 2011 school year. Plans call for opening the courses to students from other universities and adults in the future.

A committee to create an eco-zone park on the artificial island Island City in Hakata Bay submitted its final report for the creation of that zone to Fukuoka City Mayor Hiroshi Yoshida. It calls for the establishment of spaces for feeding and rest for rare birds in the area. The zone will cover about 550 hectares on the north and northeastern sides of the island. The committee was formed in November 2006 and met eight times before disbanding at the end of March this year.

2010 春闘九州の主要企業、定昇は維持、ベア厳しく

Spring Salary Compromises by Unions

プレナス、北京に弁当店

The Nishinippon Shimbun reports that most of Kyushu’s major companies have reached agreement with their labor unions in the annual “spring labor offensive”. For the most part, those companies are sticking with standardized salary increases. Most unions compromised with the companies and accepted terms less than their demands. Few companies are making efforts to significantly improve the salary and employment terms of their irregular employees, either.

Fukuoka City-based Plenas, which operates the Hotto Motto bento shops, announced plans to open takeout bento shops in Beijing, China.

It would be the company’s first attempt to run retail shops in the eating and drinking industry overseas. They will open the first outlet in July, and hope to operate about 200 in five years.

The company thinks Japanese food is a growth opportunity in China because food safety is becoming a public issue there.

Plenas Bento Shops in Beijing

久連子古代踊り保存会、吉川栄治文化賞受賞

Kureko Dance Society Award The 44th Eiji Yoshikawa Cultural Award was presented in Tokyo, and the winners of the first prize were three people from the Society for Preserving the Kureko Traditional Dance from Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture. The prize, which is to honor unrecognized people who work to elevate Japanese culture, is worth one million yen. The dance is said to be at least 500 years old. 九州の新車登録 7 年ぶり増

New Car Registrations Rise IA prefectural association of auto dealers released its report on the number of new car registrations in the seven Kyushu prefectures during FY 2009. The report showed there were 293,231 registrations, a 17.1% jump from the previous year, and the first increase in seven years. One factor cited is the financial support given by the national government for ecocar purchases. That program ends this fall, however, so there are concerns the overall totals for this year could drop again. 九州をオリーブ産地に

KKyushu Olive Production The Kyushu Olive Association started operating its first olive grove in Nakagawa-machi, Fukuoka Prefecture, on the 24th of April. The association’s objective is to make Kyushu the leading producer of olives in East Asia because they are easy to cultivate and have potential for product development. They also hope to put farmland currently lying fallow to use.

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

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