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Economic Development
Chamber Partnership with Kitakyushu, Japan Fosters Trade, Other Business Opportunities
T he Chamber has formed a partnership with Kitakyushu, Japan that will encourage and facilitate trade between Chattanooga and Japan and could lead to local business opportunities in developing countries in Asia.
“Likewise, we are expecting Japanese companies to decide to locate operations in Chattanooga,” said Chamber Vice President for Economic Development Trevor Hamilton. As part of this relationship, Hamilton and representatives of Adaptive Methods, Tricycle, Inc. and Pointe General Contractors will attend the Kitakyushu Eco-Tech Exhibition later this month. “The exhibition will allow the local companies to explore forming partnerships with Japanese companies and to familiarize themselves with some of the latest technologies in sustainable products and services,” Hamilton said.
The Chamber-Kitakyushu business exchange program was created under the auspices of the JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) Regional Industry Tie-Up (RIT) project that promotes and financially assists two-way industrial exchange and collaboration between regions in Japan and other countries. The aim is facilitating business relations to create new industries and stimulate business in participating regions.
“We have been working on this exchange program for over two years,” Hamilton said. “It began with a visit from a Kitakyushu representative in 2007 during which we discovered many similarities in our communities.”
Hamilton reciprocated with a visit to Kitakyushu that fall during a trade mission to Japan and China. He talked with companies interested in the nuclear power industry, automobiles and alternative energy. “As I presented the Chattanooga story to local officials and to businesses interested in expanding to the U.S.,” Hamilton said, “we found we had enough in common to look for opportunities to form business relationships in the future.” Kitakyushu is a progressive city of about one million residents with a growing international reputation. During the first half of the 20th Century it was a steelworks manufacturing town that, like Chattanooga, began revitalization in the 1980s. While manufacturing is still important there, the city has moved into automobile, semiconductor and environment-related industries.
Indeed, Kitakyushu is among the world’s leading environmental cities. In 1992 it was one of 12 world cities given a Local Government Honors Award at the United Nations Earth Summit, and in 2008 it was selected by the Japanese government as one of six Environmental Model Cities in Japan.
Located in southwestern Japan an hour and a half from Tokyo and Shanghai, Kitakyushu enjoys strategic status as a gateway to Asia – where many U.S. businesses would like to establish commercial footholds. This past August a delegation of six Kitakyushu public officials and businesspeople visited Chattanooga to formalize the partnership between the two cities and to visit several companies with a green focus. Some 20 area businesspeople attended a presentation by the delegates on how to do business in Japan.
“During our visit to Kitakyushu this month we will begin discussing the next steps in our partnership,” Hamilton said. “I expect more Chattanooga companies will begin establishing importing and exporting relationships with Japan. “Developing joint technology/business projects between Chattanooga and Japanese companies and then exporting the projects to other countries is another possibility. And, of course, we are hopeful that Japanese companies will want to locate operations in Chattanooga.” |
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