Organizing comm. set up for World Performing Arts Festival 2000
An organizing committee has been formed in preparation for a festival of world performing arts to be staged in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, in the summer of 2000.Represented in the committee are 27 key organizations in the Kansai region, including the Osaka prefectural government, Sakai municipal government, Osaka 21st Century Association, Commemorative Association for the Japan World Exposition, Kansai Economic Federation, Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Kansai Employers' Association.
Under the present basic plan, the "World Performing Arts Festival 2000" will take place for 10 days at Sakai's Daisen Park and around the old Sakai port. Overseas municipalities with which the Kansai region has networks, such as sister affiliation and friendship arrangements, will be invited to send their performing artists to take part in the event.
"Aspiring with friends born on this planet to advance toward the 21st century while communicating in our hearts the vibrant joy of life" will be the main theme of the festival, which will be dubbed "Wasshoi! 2000." Organizers expect that some 800,000 people will come to visit the pageant, which will also feature such events as international conferences and exhibitions on performing arts as well as stage performances by participating artists. The total project cost is planned at 1.8 billion yen.
Osaka Gas to have world's biggest gas tank in 2000
A land-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) tank being built in Osaka's Takaishi City by Osaka Gas Co. will be the biggest in the world when completed in 2000. It will measure 53 meters in height and 86 meters in diameter with a capacity of 180,000 kiloliters.Such a large capacity has become possible with the application of a new technology that can combine the metal section of the tank with highly liquid-proof prestressed concrete (PC) into a single unit, an Osaka Gas official said. In the conventional method, a metal tank was installed and a concrete embankment was built around it to prevent liquefied gas from leaking.
Tanks built in the past ranged between 75,000 and 80,000 kiloliters in capacity. Osaka Gas has been pursuing a policy of enlarging their capacity in a bid to make an efficient use of limited land spaces and reduce the construction cost. In 1993, the company built a 140,000-kiloliter LNG tank.
"Gourmet City Osaka '98" to be launched July 18-Aug.9
Visitors to Osaka this summer will be able to enjoy a wide variety of special local cuisines served by more than 300 selected cafes and restaurants in the western Japan city, known for its extravagance in food. The only thing the visitors are required to do will be get special common vouchers that entitle them to any dishes offered by the city's eating establishments taking part in the "Gourmet City Osaka '98."Organizing the event, due to run from July 18 through August 9, are the Osaka municipal government, Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Osaka Tourist Association which together have formed a special committee.
The organizers will also offer during the period a "gourmet tour" that enables participants to enjoy both food and a tour of cultural spots in Osaka and a "theme party" that enables them to watch the famous Tenjin Festival, listen to "rakugo" stories (traditional popular form of comic monologue)and enjoy a full-course dinner preceded by a lesson in traditional table manner.
The event will end with a "gourmet summit" on August 9 when panelists will discuss the future of Osaka's food culture. Gourmet City Osaka '98's Internet home page is URL:http://www.inet-osaka.or.jp/syokuto/
Kansai's trade with Asia falls about 20% in May
Total value of exports from the six Kansai prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Shiga, Nara and Wakayama dropped 3.1% in May from a year earlier to 824.0 billion yen, the Osaka Customs said in its regional trade outlook. This was the fourth consecutive monthly decline. Imports by the six prefectures also sagged 17.2% to 554.0 billion yen, marking the fifth straight monthly fall.Among export items, while video equipment increased, semiconductor chips suffered a third straight monthly fall and office equipment posted a fifth consecutive monthly decline. On the import list, meat gained but both electric appliances and clothing suffered setbacks.
By region, exports to the U.S. rose 11.8% to 195.8 billion yen and those to the EC jumped 20.7% to 143.7 billion yen, but shipments to other Asian countries plunged 21.7% to 352.1 billion yen, with those to China dipping 3.9% to 69 billion yen.
Imports fell across the board, with those from the U.S. down 3.3% to 119.7 billion yen and those from the EC down 18.6% to 75.6 billion yen. Imports from the rest of Asia went down 18.7% to 251.3 billion yen, with those from China down 15.1% at 114.4 billion yen.
The Kansai prefectures accounted for 20.4% of Japan's total exports for the month, down 0.3 point from a year earlier. Their share in imports dipped 0.2 point to 19.6%.
More than 1 million visit Nojima Fault Preservation Pavilion
The number of visitors to the Nojima Fault Preservation Pavilion, set up to preserve part of an active fault that surfaced at the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, exceeded one million in the first three months of its official opening on April 2 this year.The pavilion, located in Hokudan Town on Awaji Island, is aimed at attracting keen interest of the society to active faults and earthquakes and helping people better understand active faults. The earthquake that jolted the wide areas of Kobe, Osaka and Awaji Island on the morning of January 17, 1995, caused extensive damage, including more than 6,400 fatalities.
The Hyogo prefectural government, which played a key role in building the pavilion, had initially estimated the annual number of visitors at about 300,000.
The pavilion displays a 140-meter section of the Nojima Fault, and explains earthquakes and active faults by using panels, films and miniature models. A "Seismology Pavilion" is to be opened as an annex by 2000 to enable visitors to learn the mechanism of an earthquake and disaster prevention.
Tokushima World Dance Festa to be held Aug. 1-9
Tokushima World Dance Festa will be held at ASTY Tokushima, Tokushima City, from August 1 to 9 to celebrate the opening to traffic of an 89-kilometer expressway linking Kobe and Naruto in Tokushima Prefecture via Awaji Island under the sponsorship of the Kobe-Naruto Route Completion Commemorative Committee.The main venue will be divided into three zones to feature different dances from the 11 participating countries. In the "Live Hall" zone, Tokushima's world-famous Awa-odori dance, samba from Brazil and traditional folk dance from China will be performed every day throughout the nine-day period. Visitors to the zone will also be able to enjoy performances of Belgian, South Korean and Guam dances Aug. 1-3, Indonesian, American and Russian dances Aug. 4-6, and Spanish, Thai and Brundi dances Aug. 7-9.
The "Dance Gallery" zone will be devoted to films and exhibits introducing the historical developments of the Awa-odori dance. In the "Family Plaza" zone, visitors will have a chance to taste 20 dishes from 10 foreign countries at different stalls. It will also feature stage dramas for children.
Kansai in Focus: TV broadcasters preparing for digitalization
Television broadcasters across Japan are bracing themselves up for digital broadcasting scheduled to start in the early 2000s. Digitalization, while offering such merits as multi-channel broadcasting and high-quality images, forces broadcasters to spend a huge amount of money on necessary facilities and engage in cutthroat competition with each other.A study group of the Posts and Telecommunications Ministry came out with an interim report in June, calling on Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) and key commercial TV stations to start experimental digital broadcasting in 2000 in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo. The Advisory Committee on Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting also recommended that TV broadcasters begin beaming full-fledged digital programs in the three metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya by the end of 2003 and that broadcasters in other areas start digital broadcasting by the end of 2006.
The recommendations have prompted a group of industrialists in the Kansai area to act swiftly. They have begun preparations to set up an independent TV station, tentatively named "Kansai Channel." Members of the group are aware that software in the form of programs will come to play an essential role in digital broadcasting. And they are convinced that multi-channel broadcasting will give the Kansai region good chances to send out more information on its culture and industry if they can produce attractive software. They also hope that it will open new business opportunities and help invigorate their regional economy.
Playing the key role in the scheme is the Kansai Study Group on Information Infrastructure, chaired by Yoshihisa Akiyama, president of Kansai Electric Power Co. "Most of Japan's media organizations send out information to the world from their base in Tokyo and in so doing, they tend to make little of what is going on in the Kansai area," laments Akiyama. He adds, "You can hardly expect to attract people to Kansai from the rest of the world and make our industry more active unless you have your own ability to transmit information."
Plans are already afoot in Kyoto to set up a digital broadcasting station which organizers hope will make use of Japan's next broadcasting satellite BS-4. Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo Co., has invited Kazuo Inamori, honorary chairman of Kyocera Corp., to join hands in establishing a new venture to undertake this scheme. "My desire is to create new forms of entertainment," Yamauchi says.
Meanwhile, a separate plan to form a TV program production company is being pushed by a group of 13 Kansai businesses which share the view that what really counts in broadcasting is the quality of programs. The Research Group for Kansai Multimedia Center they organized has called for inaugurating a production company prior the establishment of a broadcasting station. Leading the group is Yoshitane Horii, who once served as head of NHK Osaka Station and is now managing director of the Osaka 21st Century Association. He is considered a key person in the "Kansai Channel" project, given his career as one of NHK board directors responsible for the launching of broadcasting satellites. Akiyama says that he will act in concert with Horii to have the proposed program production company inaugurated before the end of next March.
The Kansai business circles are pinning great hopes on the possibility that the start of digital broadcasting will play an effective role in stemming Tokyo's ever-growing monopoly of information transmission. (R)