Kansai News clips Feb.28-Mar.6

Survey
1. Businesses in the Kansai region are more confident about the future of economy than these of any other regions. 63% of business leaders in Kansai are confident about further economic growth. The reasons the Kansai economy is robust are the increase of export to the BRICs countries, and the increase of domestic consumption through increasing employment.
2. Many Kansai businesses raise starting salaries to secure human resources, because the businesses in Kanto and Chubu aggressively hire employees this year.
3. Both export and import value from/to the Kansai region exceeded one trillion yen in January 2007. This is the historical height for January.
4. Unusually warm winter contributed to the expansion of Kyoto economy in January 2007. According to the Bank of Japan, the increase of tourists and department store sales helped the Kyoto economy to expand.
Local Governments
5. Osaka Prefecture will support small and medium sized environmental businesses to open up a new market in Asia. The Prefecture will do market research for these businesses in three Asian cities, as well as subsidizes R&D up to five million yen.
6. According to the estimation on new tax allocation grant calculated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), 30% of local authorities, including Osaka, Kyoto, and Wakayama Prefectures, will face the decrease of subsidies from central government. The new tax allocation grant will be introduced in fiscal 2007.
Others
7. Kyoto Kintetsu Department Store closed at the end of February. A volume retailer of electric appliance utilizes empty lots. Meanwhile, the Kintetsu Railways invest 10 billion yen to expand its platform capacity in the Kyoto station, and build a hotel on the top of the station.
8. The personal security loan is widespread in the Kansai region. The Resona Bank loans money with accepting used books and DVDs as security against the loan. The Mitsui Sumitomo Bank has implemented five personal security loans in Kansai out of the 13 national total results.
***All news articles are cut out from the Kansai pages of Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
***This is originally written for USCS.