Osaka is the Right Choice for Japan Base: Large or Small, Competitive Osaka Businesses Pursue Worldwide Opportunities

Panasonic, Sanyo, Sharp are all well recognized brand names for home electronic appliances in the world. Yet, they all have one more thing in common: all of them originated in one place known as the best place for business in Japan; Osaka.

These businesses are among 24 companies headquartered in Osaka in Fortune's Global 500, 2001. Other names include some trading giants such as Itochu (ranked 13th), Sumitomo Trading (18), and the beverage producer Suntory (465), showing that Osaka embraces a variety of multinationals. One of the most famous may be Matsushita Electric Industrial (24), known for its brand Panasonic.

Adding to the multinational corporations, Osaka, with its long-lived pro-business culture, has nurtured innovative products and business models now known worldwide. Desktop calculators were first shipped to the market by Sharp, and "Cup Noodle", ready-to-eat instant noodles in a cup invented by Nissin Food Co., are the two commonly cited cases.

Matsushita Electric (Panasonic): A Global Company Based in Osaka

Panasonic is one of the brand names of Matsushita Electric Industrial electronics products. Based in Osaka, the company operates in 46 countries worldwide with approx. 290,000 employees and recorded consolidated sales of US$51.70 billion for the fiscal year ending in March 31, 2002.

Panasonic is best known for its main line-ups such as digital TVs, plasma display panels (PDPs), DVD players/recorders, SD related products, mobile phones and car navigation systems. The company also develops and markets key devices and components such as SD flash memory cards, advanced system LSIs and batteries. Moreover, it is expanding in areas such as intelligent transportation systems (ITS), ASTROVISION large screen video systems and tunnel venilation systems.

The company also develops and supplies products incorporating advanced technology designed to meet the needs of our increasingly connected society, such as networked home appliances and mobile communications equipment.

Foreign Companies Experiencing Success in Osaka

Nihon Medrad K.K.

Medrad, the U.S. manufacturer of medical machines, established their local corporation in Osaka in 1996. They had been exporting their products over the last 20 years to Japan through the Japanese trading corporations. They chose Osaka because their affiliated company Nihon Schering and their distributor Shieman, had already been active in Osaka where there is a concentration of pharmaceutical industry businesses. Nihon Medrad supply their medical machines worldwide. Products such as the angiography injections system and the magnetic resonance angiography helped them establish their position in the Japanese market.

Other examples of prominent U.S.A. affiliated companies based in Kansai

Company Name	Parent Company -or- Major Shareholder Abroad
Eli Lilly Japan K.K.	Eli Lilly & Co.
Nippon BEE Chemical Co., Ltd.	Morton International Inc.
Polyplastics Co., Ltd.	Hoechst Celanese Corp.
Proctor & Gamble Far East Inc.	Proctor & Gamble Co. Ltd.
Schering-Plough K.K.	Schering-Plough Corp.
Schneider Japan K.K.	Pfizer Inc.
Unitta Co.	The Gates Rubber Co.
Source: Toyo Keizai Foreign Affiliated Companies in Japan 1998