Launching international feasibility studies on "Smart Community"

The global market for social infrastructures has been rapidly expanding recently. In addition to developing or emerging countries, advanced countries are also experiencing sharp growth in demand. This area is drawing attention globally with its considerable growth. The governments of China and the Republic of Korea, those of European countries and the U.S. and others are positively participating and competing in this area, in public-private cooperation, and the competition has intensified.

METI has been promoting infrastructure/system exports, where projects are managed integrally from design and construction to maintenance and control, in public-private cooperation, being involved from the stage of designing and planning of infrastructure system projects in foreign countries

As a part of this, METI has been actively promoting overseas expansion of smart communities so as to take in the growth potential of foreign countries to help the growth of Japan, and has been offering support for infrastructure development in emerging countries and other foreign countries, which will be a base for economic growth and a safe society in these countries.

[Reference] Smart community

This is a concept of creating a new style of a community through a composite and cross-cutting combination of Japan's strength, environmental technology, such as the Smart Grid, renewable energy, urban transportation systems, water treatment systems, recycling, and IT. This is positioned as a part of the Green Growth Strategy, which is one of the three core sectors in the Rebirth of Japan strategy.

This project provides support for international feasibility studies, such as for conducting a market trend survey or business environment survey and preparing a business plan, for Japanese companies when they intend to launch smart community projects in emerging countries, etc.

Please refer to Appendix for the details of the plans adopted as the FY2012 project(PDF:37KB) (in Japanese).

METI will promote international feasibility studies under this project, and at the same time will offer support through intergovernmental dialogues and utilization of the financial support scheme, and thereby accelerate public-private efforts for infrastructure/system exports.

• [Reference] Ongoing Smart Community Project (PDF:1,466KB) (in Japanese)

November 5, 2012

Information Economy Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau