Serving as the gateway of interaction with the Asian continent since ancient times, as well as the embarkation point for Japanese envoys sailing to the Sui and Tang dynasties, Osaka Bay has supported the growth and development of our country. Today, with the continued construction of the world’s largest-scale digital consumer electronics factories, the Osaka Bay coastal areas are being transformed into a major industrial complex for pioneering industries.
(Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. has announced plans to expand their currently operating plasma panel plant in Amagasaki and to newly construct an LCD panel plant in Himeji with the planned target operation in 2010. Sharp Corporation is currently constructing a panel plant for their LCD TVs and a solar cell plant in the coastal area of Sakai City with the goal of becoming operational some time during 2010. These major construction plans will also facilitate the concentration of associated parts makers in the vicinity, resulting in the coastal bay area becoming a major concentration point for leading-edge industries.)

Following the opening of its second runway in August of last year, efforts are being made to improve the function of Kansai Airport as an international logistics hub airport. There has also been an epoch-making development that advanced the convenience level of the ports and harbors along Osaka Bay.

Convenience level enhanced with the birth of the “Port of Hanshin.”

Osaka Bay is the home of the important and central ports of Osaka and Kobe, the Port of Sakai-Semboku where the concentration of pioneering industries is advancing, and the Port of Amagasaki-Nishinomiya-Ashiya located adjacent to the Hanshin Industrial Zone. These vital ports are all situated along Osaka Bay, paving the way for Japan’s international logistics. From December 1st of last year, all four of these ports have been operated as integral parts of a unified Port of Hanshin (known as the “unified opening of ports”).

In the past, cargo vessels were required to pay normal and special tonnage duties at each port visited. Under the new system, however, even if a cargo ship makes two stops, say at Sakai-Semboku and Kobe ports, it is now enough to pay the applicable duties for only one port visit. Since April of last year, the four ports management bodies of Osaka Bay (Osaka Prefecture, Osaka City, Hyogo Prefecture and Kobe City) have initiated a preferential tax system for oceangoing container lines that make consecutive visits by reducing the harbor charge at each port by half. This was a preferential system introduced in Japan for the first time. According to a pro forma calculation by the Japanese government, the tax reduction by means of the “unified opening of ports” for oceangoing container vessels making two port visits would be able to reduce their total shipping costs by about 10%, as well as the cost reduction due to the harbor charge discount.

The emergence of various Asian ports, such as those of Singapore and Shanghai, in recent years has resulted in the relative position of Japanese ports to be seriously lowered. Under such circumstances, the central and relevant local governments will coordinate their efforts to promote the simplification of port entry procedures and computerization as a means of strengthening physical distribution function.

The entire Kansai region is committed to enhancing its international competitiveness through its “land-sea-air network.” The Port of Hanshin is undergoing functional enhancement as the physical distribution base of the “sea,” the Kansai airport of the “air” with its 24-hour operational capability, and their augmentation on the “land” by the new Meishin (Nagoya-Kobe) Expressway, the Second Keihan (Kyoto-Osaka) Road and the urban renewal beltway.