Fukuoka City General Business Information

Japan's Gateway to Asia: The Closest Major City to Asia
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47 Prefectures						17 Cities
Aichi Akita Aomori Chiba Ehime Fukui Fukuoka Fukushima	Gifu Gunma Hiroshima Hokkaido Hyogo Ibaraki Ishikawa Iwate	Kagawa Kagoshima Kanagawa Kochi Kumamoto Kyoto Mie Miyagi	Miyazaki Nagano Nagasaki Nara Niigata Oita Okayama Okinawa	Osaka Saga Saitama Shiga Shimane Shizuoka Tochigi Tokushima	Tokyo Tottori Toyama Wakayama Yamagata Yamaguchi Yamanashi	Chiba Fukuoka Hamamatsu Hiroshima Kawasaki Kitakyushu Kobe Kyoto	Nagoya Niigata Osaka Saitama Sakai Sapporo Sendai Shizuoka Yokohama

Population	1.40 million (Male: 0.68 million, Female: 0.76 million) (2005)
Labor force	69 million (2005)
Area	341km2 (2005)
GDP	6,791 billion yen (2006)
Major industries	Services (for businesses and individuals), wholesale/retail, real estate, transport/communications and industry (food processing, printing/publishing, and machinery/metals)
Developing industries	Knowledge-creating industries (ICT, robotics, automobiles, semiconductors, online content), health/medical/welfare-related industries, international logistics, Asia regional headquarters
Transportation	Fukuoka International Airport has regular flights to 17 foreign cities and 24Japanese cities. Hakata Port serves 210 regular international container liners per month, including major shipping routes to Europe and the Americas.
Education	Ranked second among the major cities in Japan for the number of students on a population basis. The greater Fukuoka area includes 12 universities and 7 junior colleges in the field of science and technology alone, and 19 vocational colleges in the field of information alone. It offers a good supply of human resources.
Expanding foreign enterprises	Fukuoka City has long been a popular choice among major foreign companies as the location for their Kyushu/West Japan regional headquarters. In recent years, the city has increasingly become regarded as a suitable base for expansion across Japan and for development. Many of these foreign enterprises are in the ICT and automobile sectors.
Consulate	Republic of Korea, China, Australia, United States

<A livable, dynamic city where you can live with peace of mind>
A dynamic city offering security and comfort, Fukuoka City was selected by the weekly magazine Newsweek (July 3-10, 2006 edition) as one of "The World's 10 Hottest Cities," indicative of the considerable regard with which the city's vibrancy and future potential are held overseas. Asia week, a weekly news magazine published in Hong Kong, has given Fukuoka City its highest-level ranking in a review of Asia's best cities. Its urban functions and living environment receive high praise from all over the world. In a survey of domestic business professionals in Japan, Fukuoka City was ranked in first place as "a livable city" and in second place as "a city where I'd like to live sometime." The top reasons respondents gave for evaluating Fukuoka City as highly livable were its "convenient shopping and transportation" and "positive living environment;" and the top reasons for wanting to move there were its "good food" and "convenient shopping and transportation."

<Key infrastructure>

• There are daily flights to Pusan (high-speed ship), Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. Of these, same-day return flights are possible from Fukuoka to Pusan, Seoul and Shanghai.
• The extremely high level of utility offered by Fukuoka's infrastructure is such that the city has recently come to be recognized as a key logistics base for trade with East Asia. In addition to the Port of Hakata with 200 monthly container runs, and Fukuoka Airport with 317 weekly international flights and 330 daily domestic flights, Fukuoka is serviced by a major highway interchange and a cargo rail station.

(1) Fukuoka Airport
With flights to 17 foreign cities, Fukuoka Airport serves more and more users every year as a base to Asia. It has grown to become Japan's third international airport in terms of trade value, after the Narita and Kansai airports. Fukuoka Airport offers easy access to major cities in Asia; Shanghai is 90 minutes away (4 daily round-trip flights) and Seoul is 70 minutes away (4-5 daily round-trip flights). There are also many flights to major cities in Japan. Located just 5 to 11 minutes by subway from the central business district of Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Airport is one of the most convenient airports in the world.
(2) Hakata Port
Designated as one of Japan's key ports, Hakata Port is the only port west of Kobe with routes to Europe and the Americas. It handles more international container volume than any other port in Kyushu. It offers harbor facilities that can berth 60,000-ton container liners, 24-hour stevedoring services on 364 days of the year, harbor services using IT, a full network of international container routes, and the lowest harbor facility usage fees of any major port. Hakata Port handles a total of 40 routes, with service by 210 vessels per month, and offers a direct connection to 41 ports in 15 countries and regions worldwide.
For transport from Japan to Korea and China, a daily ferry links Hakata Port to Pusan in six hours, and a high-speed cargo ship provides service to Shanghai in 26 hours two times per week. In combination with domestic transport by rail, truck, ship, and air, cargo can be transported by integrated high-speed, on-time services just as smoothly as is possible within Japan. Hakata Port is also Japan's leading international passenger terminal, serving over 600,000 foreign ship passengers every year. Three to six high-speed passenger ships provide service to Pusan Port every day in less than three hours.
(3) Distribution base for western Japan
Expressway and rail networks provide direct links to major cities in Kyushu and the rest of Japan. It is possible to bypass urban areas and avoid traffic congestion when traveling to and from Hakata Airport and Fukuoka Airport by using the Fukuoka Interchange or Dazaifu Interchange on Kyushu Expressway. In recent years, recognizing the advantages of low distribution costs and easy access to Asia and all parts of Japan, many businesses have been choosing Fukuoka City as the site for their distribution bases in western Japan.

<Economic and industrial characteristics of Fukuoka City>
The wholesale industry and B2B service industry account for a large proportion, serving business and consumption in the Kyushu-Yamaguchi region. There is a concentration of functions to support industry in Kyushu overall.

- Information related industries
Fukuoka City has a high concentration of information related businesses in comparison to other large cities, and this concentration is increasing every year. Growth is occurring in the areas of software, information processing services, the Internet, and other software-related IT industries. Even from a nationwide perspective, this is quite a sizeable concentration.

- Content industry
Fukuoka City boasts one of Japan's leading concentrations of design related industries, a local character that appreciates culture and the arts and produces outstanding artists, and educational institutions that focus on the arts, including Kyushu University's Graduate School of Design. Along with the trend toward broadband communications, Fukuoka City aspires to form a concentration of content related industries.

- System LSI design
Fukuoka City is becoming a base for system LSI design and development (SiP, SoC), with a concentration of semiconductor related industries in Kyushu.

- Robotics related industries
Making use of the advantages of a highly livable city as well as the concentration of information related businesses and R&D institutions including universities, Fukuoka City is advancing in the area of robotics related industries, with RoboSquare and the Special Zone for Robot Development and Testing at the center of these efforts.

- Automotive industry
Toyota, Nissan, Daihatsu, and other automotive manufacturers have advanced factories in northern Kyushu, which has become a major production base for the automotive industry.
Total unit production in 2006 topped one million units, with a high concentration of parts manufacturers having accumulated in the surrounding area as well. Brisk activities by automobile companies are not only targeting Japan, but likewise have their sights set on East Asia.

<Outstanding human resources and a reasonable business environment>
The Fukuoka City area includes 12 universities and 7 junior colleges in the field of science and engineering, and 19 vocational colleges that offer programs in IT. It ranks second among Japan's major cities in the number of students as a percentage of population, and third in the number of foreign students as a percentage of population. Many professionals are returning or relocating to Fukuoka City from other regions as a career move, and a wealth of outstanding human resources is available.

International schools	Fukuoka City has one international school that conducts classes in English - from kindergarten through high school - within an American-style educational curriculum. The Fukuoka Metropolitan Area also has a private elementary school incorporating an immersion program whereby all classes other than Japanese are conducted in English. In addition, public elementary and junior high schools in Fukuoka City provide supplementary Japanese study programs for foreign students.
Health services catering to foreigners	180 medical institutions in Fukuoka City offer medical services in foreign languages. The Fukuoka International Association provides information on these through a publication called the Hospital Guide in Fukuoka for Foreign Residents.
Other	The Fukuoka International Association maintains an office known as Rainbow Plaza which provides information, consultation, counseling and legal advice to foreigners living in Fukuoka. Service is provided in English, Chinese and Korean. There are also local foreign language newspapers and FM radio services broadcasting in a variety of languages.