Kansai News clips Mar.7-13

Economic Development
1. Japan Atomic Agency and the Keihanna Center for New Industry launched a new project to build a research center for laser medical care in Keihanna area, together with private companies and universities. This is the third project to develop medical industry in the Kansai region.
2. Osaka Prefecture strengthens its effort to attract businesses to the Saito life science Parks, another project to develop medical industry in northern Osaka.
3. The first shopping mall in Saito, Garden Mall Saito, will open on Mar. 18. The shopping mall is located next to the Saito-Nishi station, which will open on March 19.
4. The downtown Osaka, Yodoyabashi, will have 140meter-tall, twin skyscrapers by 2011. Landowners around Yodoyabashi are planning to merge small buildings and build skyscrapers in order to make Yodoyabashi as attractive as northern Osaka station area, where huge project is underway.
Airport
5. The city council of Itami City, Hyogo Prefecture, finally gave up the call for the abolition of the Osaka International Airport for the first time in 34 years.
6. The loading factor of the Kobe Airport has improved by 6.2% to 58.9% for the first time in six months. The number of passenger per day also increased to 7,814, the highest record since last September.
Others
7. Financial conditions of local authorities differ the cost of raising money from the financial market since the abolition of regulated interest rate in September 2006. Kyoto enjoys decreasing interest rate. On the other hand, the interest rates of local bonds issued by Osaka and Hyogo are increasing.
8. Manufacturers in the Kansai region have diversified their fuel in order to tackle with the soaring price of crude oil, and to stay competitive in the market place.
9. According to a research issued by JETRO, only 14.9% of Kansai-based companies have taken advantage of the Economic Partnership Agreements with Mexico, or the EPA with Malaysia.

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