Kyushu Electric Power has applied to the government to add a surcharge of 0.15 yen per kWh to all power users based on the new system that allows utilities to purchase excess power from those who generate it with solar panels. This will work out to roughly 45 yen per month for the average household. All the national power companies have announced they will do the same, but solar power generation is more widespread in Kyushu, so the expense to users will be greater.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released figures showing the first net influx of population into Kyushu in 15 years. Last year, there was a net outflow of 13,225 people from the seven prefectures, but this year a net influx of 9,719 people into Fukuoka Prefecture resulted in an overall net influx for the region of 843 people. The year-on-year increase for Fukuoka Prefecture was the highest in Japan.
The Nishinippon Shimbun is reporting that Fukuoka Prefecture paid 30.18 million yen for about four and a half years starting in 2007 to individual members of the prefectural assembly for personal requests related to the national government and Diet, including travel expenses, without confirmation of the objectives of the trip or the destination. In addition, 15.14 million yen was paid to members of the Saga Prefecture assembly for similar reasons without confirmation for more than five years. These two prefectures are the only ones in Japan with such payment systems, and they are now the focus of criticism for their lack of transparency.
Surveys by two Cabinet ministries revealed that the advance hiring of students who will be graduated from universities this spring in Kyushu and Okinawa Prefecture totaled 67.3% of the total as of December 1. This is the lowest of the six national blocs, though it is a 4.2 percentage-point increase from the previous year. The national average is 71.9%.
The Fukuoka Prefecture government established the Fukuoka Asia Medical Support Center in Fukuoka City on the 16th to offer consultation services to foreigners from Asia and elsewhere who wish to receive examinations or treatment at prefecture medical facilities. The support will include providing information on facilities and how to apply for visas for medical stays, and sending interpreters to accompany the foreigners to facilities. This is said to be the first service of its kind at the prefectural level in Japan.
At a Board of Director’s meeting, Kyushu Electric Power formally approved the choice of Michiaki Uriu to replace current President Toshio Manabe, and Masayoshi Nuki to replace Shingo Matsuo as chairman. Both men will assume their new positions on April 1. It is unusual for a company to replace its president and chairman at the same time, but the utility thought it was a necessary step to regain the public’s trust after the bogus e-mail scandal six months ago involving the resumption of operations at the Genkai nuclear power plant.
The Fukuoka Chamber of Commerce and Industry released the results of its survey of member firms regarding the salaries they paid their employees in 2011. It revealed that 31.35% offered no wage increases to their employees during the year, a 1.0 percentage-point rise from the previous year. In contrast, 47.0% of the companies did boost employee salaries, but the average increase was 692 yen less than the year before.
Public highway corporations in Fukuoka and Saga prefectures are facing a deadline of the end of FY 2012 for the repayment of 17.2 billion yen in operating expenses, but the Nishinippon Shimbun reports the Fukuoka Public Highway Corporation is unlikely to repay all its liability of 13.6 billion yen. That makes it probable there will be a total of 3 billion yen in unpaid funds. The primary reason is that the initial estimates of demand for the use of the toll road were unreasonably high. The expenses were incurred in 1983 and were supposed to be repaid in 20 years.
The University of Kitakyushu announced it will establish the Environmental Technology Institute on its campus in March, with the objective of developing advanced technology for disaster recovery and dealing with nuclear contamination. The 75 teaching personnel in the university’s Faculty of Environmental Engineering will serve as research personnel. The Ministry of Education says this will be the first Japanese university to establish a research institute for both disaster measures and recovery.
The Kyushu Economic Research Center released its forecast for the Kyushu-Okinawa region in 2012, which calls for 0.9% in real economic growth (excepting price fluctuations) for the year. Rebuilding from the Tohoku disaster will have a smaller impact in Kyushu, as the projected growth rate for the nation as a whole is 1.9%. If the forecast growth is achieved, it will be the third straight year of positive growth in the region.
A questionnaire survey conducted by Fukuoka City found that about 60% of the 107 food and drink stall operators in the Nakasu district are thinking of quitting in the next 10 years. The city’s policy is that stall operation be limited to one generation and not handed on to children, and the aging of the operators is throwing the continued existence of the stalls into question. Operators aged 50 or older account for 75% of the stall operators, and those aged 70 or older account for 20%. More than half say they don’t know who will succeed to the business, or have a successor in mind. Meanwhile, a survey by the Kyushu Economic Research Center found that, with tourism factored in, the stalls had an economic effect of 5.323 billion yen annually.
The Fukuoka City Police Department announced the installation of 42 surveillance cameras in the Nakasu district and nearby areas, and said they would begin operation on January 1st. The objective is to both prevent crime and hard-sell tactics to solicit customers for adult entertainment establishments. It is part of a new pilot program by the National Police Agency, and will be implemented jointly with a similar program in Sapporo.
Reactor #4 at Kyushu Electric Power’s Genkai Power Plant in Saga Prefecture was shut down on the 25th for normal maintenance and inspection. With that, all six nuclear power plant reactors in Kyushu have been shut down. The next day, the national government and Kyushu Electric asked homes and businesses to voluntarily cut back on electricity consumption by 5%. This is the first time all the nuclear reactors in the region have been shut down at once.
Toshio Manabe, the president of Kyushu Electric Power, announced at a news conference that he will submit his resignation by the end of the year to help the utility regain the public trust that was damaged due to the revelation of their efforts to have the Genkai Nuclear Power Plant restarted by having employees send e-mails that were ostensibly from other citizens. Manabe said he accepts full responsibility for the e-mail scheme, and the timing of his resignation has always been in his mind. He also said he will resign as a director, and his replacement will likely be named at a Board of Directors’ meeting to be convened in January or February.
Research by the Nishinippon Shimbun reveals that five of Kyushu’s 11 prisons and detention centers lack a sufficient number of doctors for the number of inmates. The prisons in Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, and Tosu, Saga Prefecture, have none at all. This has led to increasing numbers of prisoner complaints to bar associations that insufficient or inadequate treatment is an infringement of their rights.
The Fukuoka Employers’ Association released the results of its questionnaire survey on the hiring practices of local companies, in which only 12% of the respondents said they made a practice of hiring foreign students on graduation. Broken down, the total was 20% for manufacturing companies and 8% for non-manufacturing companies. In addition, 68% of the companies said they had never hired foreign students, and 11% said they had hired them in the past, but aren’t hiring them now. A Keidanren national survey last fall showed that 59% of the companies regularly hired foreign students, showing how Kyushu is lagging.
The ruling Democratic Party of Japan will ask the Cabinet to approve construction on three sections of the Shinkansen, one of which is the western leg of the Kyushu Shinkansen from Isahaya to Nagasaki. It is expected that a committee consisting of three government ministries will authorize the start of construction before yearend. The initial construction plan was finalized in 1973.
Jonathan Fried, the Canadian ambassador to Japan, sat for an interview with the Nishinippon Shimbun and stressed the necessity for closer ties between his country and Kyushu. One example he cited was the connection between Canadian R&D efforts for hydrogen fuel cells and the technological development in Fukuoka. Fried also encouraged Japan to participate in TPP discussions, saying that every country wanted to protect its national interests, and these issues could be worked out through discussion.
Local governments throughout Japan have been hesitant to help the prefectures of the Tohoku region to dispose of the rubble created by the March earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear plant accident. The city of Takeo in Saga Prefecture, however, became the first local government in Kyushu to express a willingness to offer their facilities to help. The local disposal facility has established its own standards for radioactivity, and the municipality said they would only accept debris below that level. After receiving 1,000 complaints from local residents, however, the city changed its mind.
A business association of 2,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in Fukuoka Prefecture conducted a survey of its members to determine their views on economic matters. The combination of those either outright opposed or leaning toward opposition to the Noda Administration’s proposed consumption tax increase was 57%, while 36% were in favor. In addition, 54% were concerned about the impact of the higher yen on their businesses.
Citizen’s Ombudsman Fukuoka reports that only three of Saga Prefecture’s 21 municipalities have asset disclosure laws for their mayors or council members. Further, only one municipality restricts the city government from giving orders for construction work to companies with which a family member of the mayor or council member is affiliated. In contrast, 54 of Fukuoka Prefecture’s 64 municipalities have such asset disclosure laws.
The Nishinippon Shimbun conducted a questionnaire survey of mothers of child-rearing age in Fukuoka City to gauge their opinions about child abuse, and received answers from 591. In response to a question about a series of deaths that resulted from child abuse, nearly 30% answered, “There might have been circumstances by which we should feel sympathy for the parents”, and “It is possible that I could be an abuser myself”. About 80% of the respondents were from a household where both parents work, and about 10% were single parents.
As of October 1, only 52.6% of university students expected to graduate in the spring have found post-graduate employment, according to surveys by the education and health ministries. While this is a 1.1 percentage point improvement from the previous year after two straight years of declines, it is the lowest rate for the six national blocs. The national rate is 59.9%, the second lowest ratio since statistics were first kept in 1996.
The Fukuoka and Kumamoto Regional Tax Bureaus released figures for corporate tax statements for 2010 showing that the declared income for corporations in the seven Kyushu prefectures rose 9.6% from the previous year to 1.5574 trillion yen. Tax payments, meanwhile, rose 8.5% to 415.7 billion yen. This was the first increase in both categories in four years. The bad news, however, was that the percentage of profitable companies that filed and were assessed a tax was 28.6% of 223,411 firms. That is down 0.3 percentage points from the previous year, the 10th annual decline and the lowest percentage on record.
Kagoshima Prefecture Gov. Yuichiro Ito has declared his personal opposition to the Defense Ministry’s planned move of American land-based carrier landings by naval aircraft to the uninhabited Mageshima in his prefecture, 12 kilometers from Tanegashima. Gov. Ito had maintained his neutrality on the issue because he said the wishes of the public should be paramount. A majority of the residents of the four closest municipalities have signed a petition opposing the move.
Kyushu Electric Power announced that if all six of its nuclear plants are idled in mid-December, it would call on households and companies to reduce power consumption by at least 5% during the hours from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. from December 19 to February 3. They would make an exception for the yearend period from December 29 to January 4. They also said they would not ask such institutions as hospitals, railroads, and factories to make the same cuts, but rather to cooperate to the extent possible. It is the first time that Kyushu Electric has asked consumption cutbacks with specific figures.
The 2010 census conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows that the Kyushu population stood at 13,203,965 million, a 1.1% drop from the 2005 census. The decline was slightly larger than the 0.7% decline for the 2005 census. The census also showed the population of those 65 or older accounted for 24.5% of the total, higher than the 23% national average. The only prefecture to gain people was Fukuoka, where the population rose by 0.4%.
The Fukuoka and Kyushu Local Finance Branch Bureaus released their economic report on the region for the July – September quarter, which concludes that signs of an economic recovery are now visible in the three northern prefectures of Fukuoka, Saga, and Nagasaki. They added that signs of a recovery are continuing in the four southern prefectures. For both areas, however, they warn that conditions are still harsh. They also caution that the high yen and restrictions on electric power could have a negative impact on the region.
The foundations consisting of municipalities in each prefecture are dipping into the funds accumulated from nearly 30 years of profits from the Summer Jumbo lottery to offset governmental financial obligations. Roughly 26.88 billion yen was distributed in five Kyushu prefectures (not Oita or Miyazaki) during the period from 2005 to 2011. The highest amount of money distributed was eight billion yen in Kumamoto Prefecture, followed by 5.8 billion yen in Fukuoka Prefecture. Saga Prefecture distributed 4.83 billion yen, and has only 720 million yen remaining in the fund, the lowest amount in Kyushu.
The Nishinippon Shimbun conducted a survey of 116 leading regional companies on the subject of atomic energy policy and found that 60.3% of the total thinks that Japan in the future should shut down all the plants and switch to natural energy. A greater percentage of 75.8% also think the currently idled nuclear plants should be restarted to maintain a stable energy supply. Those surveyed realize all six Kyushu nuclear power plants are expected to be idled over the winter.
Kumamoto Prefecture outsourced to the private sector in May the operation of the e-application system it developed and shares with prefectural municipalities. This outsourcing has achieved savings of 96%. Oita, Miyazaki, and Kagoshima have made similar outsourcing arrangements, but their savings were limited to roughly 60%.
The Kyushu Regional Governors’ Conference has agreed to establish a permanent body to provide support to areas suffering large natural disasters. The seven Kyushu prefectures, as well as the prefectures of Yamaguchi and Okinawa, will respond as a group to requests for assistance following a disaster. The intent is to accelerate the local response.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of local governments seeking new agreements with power companies on atomic power safety before the governments agree to the restart of the currently idled nuclear power plants. The power companies, however, are not interested in clearing the new hurdles that the pacts would likely require. As a result, three municipalities in Fukuoka Prefecture within 19 kilometers of the Genkai nuclear plant in Saga Prefecture have submitted an agreement that does not include the prior consent of those municipalities to restart the plant.
The Kyushu Bureau of Economy, Trade, and Industry released the results of its survey of new factory establishments in the region in the January-June period this year. There were 46 cases of finalized plans for new factories in the region, four fewer than in the year-before period and the third consecutive decline. The total land area for the factories was 30.8 hectares, 5.1 fewer than in the year before and the lowest area since 1980. The peak for new factories in the first half of any year was 269 in 1990.
The Nishinippon Shimbun reports that Kyushu tobacco farmers are struggling to such an extent that many will give up the crop. The farmers have been battered by a combination of declining cigarette sales and higher taxes on cigarettes. Of the 3,104 households in the region that grow leaf tobacco as a cash crop, 1,299 as of now say they intend to stop cultivation next year.
The Nishinippon Shimbun reports on the content of anti-drunk driving rules being considered by Fukuoka Prefecture’s assembly. Shops that sell liquor to drunk drivers, and which have already been warned by the police, may be fined. Also, drunk drivers may be required to undergo an examination for alcohol dependency, and could be fined if they refuse. The prefecture says that Miyazaki, Yamagata, Oita, and Okinawa prefectures have similar ordinances, but their proposal is the only one in Japan with penalties.
With Kyushu Electric Power struggling to meet power demand with the Genkai nuclear plant still idled, they have taken the unusual step of operating their seldom used generators on the Goto Islands of Nagasaki Prefecture during peak demand periods and sending the power to their primary consumers on the main island. Three generators are being used, one of which runs on diesel, while the rest use fuel oil. The utility is expected to continue this practice throughout the winter, as all six of the generators at Genkai will be shut down in December.
In FY 2006, Fukuoka Prefecture floated 30 billion yen worth of structured bonds whose premiums were linked to the exchange rate. They are structured in such a way that if the yen appreciates past 80-90 to the dollar, the premiums would rise by 4-5 times. If the current yen appreciation continues, the prefecture’s obligations could rise by 1.36 billion yen a year.
The Yamaguchi Prefecture Promotion Foundation, an extra-governmental body affiliated with the prefecture, and the largest shareholder in Chugoku Electric Power, announced that it would sell 27.5 million shares of the utility’s stock. That amounts to more than half of the foundation’s holdings, and 7.5% of the utility’s outstanding shares. They are selling the stock to financial institutions to alleviate the prefectural government’s straitened fiscal situation.
The Fukuoka branch of Tokyo Shokoh Research reports that corporate bankruptcies with at least 10 million yen in liabilities in the Kyushu – Okinawa Prefecture region in the first half of FY 2011 rose 7.6% from the previous year to 461. The total amount of liabilities soared 85.1% to 143.316 billion yen. This was the first increase in both categories in three years. One factor cited for the increase was the 32 bankruptcies attributed to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
