Japan's Third City Invests For Future Developments
<B> Japan's Third City Invests For Future Developments</B>
By Judy Jacobs
Nagoya, Japan's most important economic center behind Tokyo and Osaka, is in the midst of a development boom that will carry it into the 21st century and bring more business travelers to the city located midway between its two better known rivals.
The cornerstones of this development include an airport, a reconstructed railway station, a new bullet train line, a high-tech industrial park and two additional hotels. Perhaps the most important of these, the New Chubu International Airport is scheduled to open in 2005 and will strengthen Japan's role in international aviation.
"Japan wants to play a role as one of the cores of the global aviation network which is now under construction," said Shozaburo Kawamo, executive director of the Nagoya Representative Office in Los Angeles. This network he refers to incorporates the new airports in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur, an expansion at Singapore's Changi Airport and the upcoming new Seoul Airport, to be located in Inchon.
Nagoya's future airport, which will be located on a site 21 miles south of the city, will be able to handle 20 million passengers per year--eight million international and 12 million domestic. The current facility processed 3.7 million international and 6.4 million domestic passengers in 1997.
Along with the new airport, Nagoya is strengthening its role as a domestic transportation hub with the opening of the Japan Rail (JR) Central Towers next spring. The project includes the 800-room JR Tokai Hotel, a department store, retail shops, restaurants and a multi-purpose meeting hall, as well as the new JR Nagoya Station.
The new JR station will replace the current Nagoya Station, which was last renovated in 1937. Approximately 1,000 trains and 320,000 passengers pass through Nagoya Station each day, making it one of the country's most important rail hubs.
Also passing through the Nagoya station is the Tokaido Shinkansen--also known as the Bullet Train--which links Tokyo and Osaka. This train too is operated by JR Central, and the rail company is developing a second Shinkansen line between the two cities. At press time the exact completion date of this line remained unannounced.
The company is hoping to use the superconducting Maglev technology, which it is currently testing on a railway line in Yamanashi prefecture near Tokyo. The Maglev, which runs by magnetic levitation, can achieve speeds of up to 300 miles (480 kilometers) per hour and produce carbon dioxide emissions that are one-sixth that of airplanes and one-eighth that of passenger cars, based on average emission per person per kilometer.
While city officials are laying the groundwork for an improved transportation system, they also are creating the infrastructure for an improved manufacturing base to draw more business to the central Chubu region of Japan, where Nagoya is located.
Currently, the Japanese subsidiaries of 49 international companies--including Black and Decker, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dow Chemical, DuPont and Pfizer--are located in the region.
To ensure its success as a business center in the 21st century, Nagoya officials have created the Shidami Human Science Park, a highly technological industrial and research park, which it intends to develop into one of the most important industrial technology centers in the world.
The Shidami park includes a Research & Development Center and will incorporate university science and engineering departments, private corporations, academic research organizations, as well as private research laboratories.
Meanwhile, to accommodate some of the additional business travelers who will be making their way to Nagoya, ANA Hotels Hotel Grand Court Nagoya will open April 8 in front of Kanayama Station on the JR line. The hotel will include 246 guestrooms and 10 meeting rooms, which will vary in size from 516 to 8,300 square feet. One of those rooms will be the 4,200-sq.-ft. Sky Ballroom on the 28th floor.