Kansai News clips Mar.14-20

Railroad
1. The Sakura Syukukawa Station, a long waited new station between the Nishinomiya Station and the Ashiya Station on the JR Kobe line, opened on March 18. The new station has already raised the prices of condos around the new station.
2. The Saito line of the Osaka Monorail extended to the Saito, a newly developed city in North Osaka. The Saito-Nishi station opened on March 19. The monorail company expects 4 thousands passengers a day.
Sellout
3. A shopping center near the Kobe ferry terminal will be sold for about 10 billion yen to an investment fund.
4. Osaka Prefecture’s semi-public Company, Senri Life Science Center, decided to go out of business next month. Goldman Sacks will purchase the facilities and site for about 14 billion yen.
5. The Kobe Port Authority announced that it would sell a 2.8 hectare-site in the Port Island.
New Listing
6. USJ went public on the Mothers in the Tokyo Stock Exchange on March 16.
Survey
7. The department Sales in Kyoto, Kobe, and Osaka City increased by 3 % from a year earlier to 156 billion yen last month.
8. According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Kansai-based firms have stronger demand for labor force than those of other regions.
Local Authority
9. Kyoto City enacted the law preserving traditional scenery on March 13. The Chairman of Kyoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated his high appreciation of the new law. Meanwhile, rooftop ad businesses and realty businesses criticized it.
10. Osaka City’s robot laboratory and a private company have started an open experiment on cleaning robot in a shopping mall. Osaka City has been supporting robot industry to develop within the city.

***All news articles are cut out from the Kansai pages of Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
***This is originally written for USCS.