Urasoe City has established a holding company called Urasoe Smart City Infrastructure Development Co, Ltd. to advance development along the extension of the Okinawa Urban Monorail line, and to build new “Tedako Urasoe Station.”

Urasoe City and the government-owned Public Financial Corporation are sponsoring the project. The plan is to promote the “Smart City Development Plan” by forming public and private partnerships, and by establishing a company to support environment-friendly renewable energy generation, and to establish an electric power company that would be a subsidiary of the Urasoe Smart City Infrastructure Development Co, Ltd.

Urasoe City has invested the basic capital of ¥25 million in the new company that started business on Aug. 2, with Hiroyuki Noguchi, the vice-mayor of Urasoe City, as the chief executive officer. The Public Financial Corporation will take additional stakes in the new company in a step-by-step manner.

The arrangement, in which a partnership of public and private entities cooperate to control several specific purpose companies, is common in the United Kingdom and Germany. However, this is the first trial of the system in Okinawa. It’s also quite rare in Japan.

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