Kobe City General Business Information

An international city with exceptionally convenient transportation by air, sea, and land
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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	1.52 million (Male: 0.72 million, Female: 0.80 million) (2007)
Labor force	0.72 million (2005)
Area	552km2 (2007)
GDP	5,878 billion yen (2006)
Major industries	General machinery, transport machinery, electrical machinery, iron/steel, food products
Developing industries	Medical industry, ICT, nanotechnology, fashion, precision machinery
Transportation	With the opening of Kobe Airport, access is now available via air, sea or land, and six major cities around Japan can be reached from Kobe in 1 to 3 hours; additionally, the Kansai International Airport is only about 29 minutes away by the high-speed Bay Shuttle ferry. The Port of Kobe is one of Japan's leading international trade ports, and offers the latest in deepwater high-specification container berths.
Education	Kobe has 8 nine international schools with about 2,500 foreign students. The city has 18 universities, 8 junior colleges, and 60 high schools.
Expanding foreign enterprises	Proctor and Gamble Far East, STN Atlas Marine Japan, Nestle Japan, Eli Lilly Japan, etc.
Consulate	Panama

Kobe has developed as an international port city since it was opened to the outside world in 1868, and the city's about 44,000 foreign residents from 115 countries attest to a living environment (schools, etc.) very accommodating to persons from abroad. Further evidence of the high regard given to the locale is that nearly 100 foreign or foreign-affiliated companies have headquartered their Japanese operations in Kobe.
1. [Kobe Medical Industry Development Project]
(High-technology, Medical care, public welfare, biotechnology and nanotechnology)
The Kobe Medical Industry Development Project is being implemented to promote industries related to health, public welfare, and medical care, which are growth industries of the twenty-first century. Centered on the second-stage development of Port Island, this project includes the development of advanced medical research and development bases such as the Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation and the creation of new industries and concentrations of domestic and foreign enterprises related to medical care. Meanwhile, through the establishment of a next-generation medical care system, the project also aims to stimulate Kobe's economy, contribute to conversion of its industrial structure, and improve the level of medical services in order to enhance the public welfare and make a contribution to international society by improving medical care technology in Asian nations.
2. [The Shanghai-Yangtze Valley Trade Promotion Project]
This project aims to open a path toward economic revitalization by promoting commerce and exchange between the Kobe-Hanshin economic zone and the rapidly growing economic zone of Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley. Currently in the second-stage development of Port Island, a New Chinatown is being formed as a neighborhood to gather domestic and foreign enterprises that will actively pursue business in China and Asia.
3. [Kobe Robot Technology Project]
(IT)
For many years, Kobe has been home to a large number of small to medium enterprises with outstanding technologies in areas such as machinery, metals, and electrical equipment. The Kobe Robotic Technology (RT) Project seeks to combine these outstanding technologies to develop new products and create new robotic technologies for applications in medical care, health and welfare, rescue, and other areas, thereby contributing to the revitalization of businesses in the city and helping to improve the lives of Kobe residents. Industry, academia, the private sector, and government are working together, in collaboration with institutions such as the robotics laboratory of the New Industry Research Organization (NIRO), to promote the basic concept consisting of the following three pillars.
4. [Next-Generation Supercomputer]
In March 2007, the RIKEN Japan announced the construction of a next-generation supercomputer facility in Kobe Port Island. This is a shared-use facility focused on a supercomputer on which development is being advanced with RIKEN Japan as the key force, as one phase of the "Advanced High-Performance General-Use Supercomputer Development and Use" project promoted by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The project includes the development and equipping of a "Next-Generation Supercomputer System" targeting operation performance of 10P (peta) FLOPS (floating-point operations per second), establishment of a supercomputing research and education base to serve as the hub of this development, and perfection and proliferation of software engineered to maximize the supercomputer's use. The project promotion period is slated to run from 2006 to 2012, with total investment to come to \115 billion. The current goal is to have the facility commence operations in 2010.

<Key infrastructure>

• Offering an ideally convenient location as a business hub, Kobe is only 1 to 3 hours from Tokyo, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima and other major cities nationwide, and the opening of Kobe Airport makes available 3-way access by air, sea, or land.
• A new transport system links the airport and city center in as little as 16 minutes, and Kobe's extensive rail and road networks make legwork that much easier.
• The city is well-positioned for logistics as well, with one of the world's best container ports quite near the airport. This port offers logistics facilities and business-use sites, and enables smooth and rapid linkage between air and sea/land routes.

International schools

6 corporations and 8 schools within Kobe City <Name, location> <Language(s) used, year of establishment> Canadian Academy English, 1913 St. Michael's International School English, 1946 Marist Brothers International School English, 1951 German School Kobe German/English, 1909 Kobe Chinese School Chinese, 1899 Hyogo Korean Academy Kobe Korean Senior High School Kobe Korean Elementary and Junior High School Nishi-kobe Korean Elementary School Korean 1949 1945 1945

Health services catering to foreigners

Higashinada-ku: 21, Nada-ku: 20, Chuo-ku: 45, Hyogo-ku: 12, Kita-ku: 15, Nagata-ku: 9, Suma-ku: 16, Tarumi-ku: 21, Nishi-ku: 10; total of 168