TOKYO, Aug. 2, 2022—Boeing will open a new R&D facility on a bevy of new technologies on fuels, robotics, hydrogen, digitalization and composites jointly with the Japanese Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, the company announced Aug. 1, 2022, clearly an agreement initiated by the ministry’s overture. This is a rare – almost unusual – transaction between the two countries in recent years as U.S. businesses increasingly have been viewing Japan as lagging behind Korea and China technologically, especially.
The government of prime minister Fumio Kishida is promoting what he labeled as a ‘new economic policy’ that was essentially borrowed from the late prime minister Shinzo Abe’s obscure ‘Abenomics.’ Kishida’s policy is aimed at redistribution of national wealth and growth, e.g., wage rises and surgical infusion of government money into semiconductors and other key tech areas.
One example of more to come: In late July, METI said it would subsidize up to 92.9 billion yen ($715 million) to a joint venture of Japan’s Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory) and Western Digital of the United States for the venture’s planned chipmaking facility construction in Japan.
Boeing’s facility will be located in Nagoya, home of Toyota Motor Corp, in central Japan and serve as the Asian R&D hub that embraces Australia, China and Korea, the announcement said. The facility will collaborate with Japan’s two international carriers, Japan Airlines, and All Nippon Airways, it said.
It was not clear whether METI will provide financial and taxation incentives to the facility but traditionally, Japan has extended credit, amortization of facility taxes and others to similar projects.
Details are as follows:
https://www.meti.go.jp/press/2022/08/20220801002/20220801002-1.pdf
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