Economy of Fukuoka Prefecture
Leading the economy of the Kyushu region
Fukuoka’s GDP
Fukuoka, the largest city in Kyushu, is home to many major companies and organizations. The prefecture’s GDP in 2006 was 164 billion U.S. dollars, close to that of Portugal, Hong Kong, and Venezuela (Fig. 1).
Export to overseas locations such as the U.S. and China has also been active. Of commodities exported from Fukuoka Prefecture in 2006, machinery and electrical products account for around 38%, and automobiles and vessels for approximately 25%, nearly 60% of which are to the Asian markets.
Manufacturing center
Often called “car island” or “silicon island,” the northern Kyushu region including Fukuoka serves as a center for automobile and semiconductor manufacturing. In Fukuoka Prefecture particularly, are factories of Toyota and Nissan, whose annual combined automobile production totals approximately 1.13 million units (nearly 10% of national production). With the aim of achieving annual automobile production of 1.5 million units, plans are underway to build more factories and attract more parts makers to the region.
Similar efforts have been made to further promote the semiconductor business, including an ongoing project to establish a development base in Fukuoka to serve as a core for the Silicon Sea Belt area (Kyushu, South Korea, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and India) where more than 50% of semiconductors marketed worldwide are produced and used. Sony, Mitsubishi Electric, Toshiba and many other major semiconductor makers are operating in the prefecture, forming a large cluster of semiconductor businesses. Furthermore, programs are being proactively carried out to facilitate joint R&D activities by businesses, academia and governmental agencies and to train experts in state-of-the-art technologies.
Industry-academia-government partnerships
In addition to the previously mentioned semiconductor industry, Fukuoka’s industry-academia-government collaboration also focuses on many other business areas. In biotechnology, for example, the Fukuoka Prefectural Bio-Industry Center Promotion Conference has been established to support R&D programs for new medical products. There are also many other R&D facilities and human resource development opportunities available in various innovative business areas, such as robot technology, which can be applied to other industrial areas, environmentally-friendly hydrogen energy technology, and content businesses including video game production. These programs and environments make Fukuoka an ideal place for new businesses.
