Southwest Japan’s Challenges: Global Wave / Thriving Fukuoka Eyes ‘Global Financial City’ Status; Schools, Jobs, Food Culture Appeal to Young People

By Yo Nakanishi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

7:00 JST, March 11, 2025

This is the second installment of a series that follows the waves of change taking place in Kyushu and nearby Yamaguchi and Okinawa prefectures ahead of 2050.

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FUKUOKA — On Jan. 6, the first workday for many people after the New Year’s vacation, Hisato Amano, 29, the CEO of Tokyo-based web marketing company Techro, was at home in Fukuoka, having a remote conference on his computer.

“How many webinar reservations do we have now?” Amano asked an executive of his company on the screen.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, Amano shifted all employees to fully remote work. He himself moved to Fukuoka to run his Tokyo-based company from the city.

Amano is from Chiba Prefecture and went to college in Tokyo. He decided to move to Fukuoka as many of his company’s business partners are in Fukuoka.

In the city, Amano also has a fulfilling private life. He met and married his wife Kaname, 37. On weekends, he enjoys nature, including hiking in the nearby mountains. He now has a favorite wine bar.

“Fukuoka has the best mix of city and countryside. I’ll continue to live here,” he said.

Since the end of World War II, the population of Fukuoka has boomed. According to the city government, it was about 540,000 in 1955 and now stands at 1.65 million.

The city attracts new residents due to such strengths as its concentration of universities and vocational schools, many job opportunities for young people, a good living environment and a rich food culture. The percentage of the population aged 15-29 is 17.6%, the highest among government ordinance-designated cities.

Fukuoka has developed thanks to businesses that thrive in urban environments, such as information technology and services, with tertiary industries accounting for more than 90% of its production value.

Fukuoka is positioned as a gateway to Asia. In addition, the Tenjin and Hakata areas in the center of the city are undergoing redevelopment. The city is said to be one of the most remarkably growing cities in Japan, and is enjoying prosperity.

Demographic black hole

At the same time, the city is beginning to experience strains caused by its population growth. For one thing, the city’s infrastructure development has not kept up. Morning and evening traffic jams and overcrowded subways are serious problems, causing citizens to complain. Some citizens also complain that they cannot afford to buy a house due to the rapid increase in real estate prices.

The city and local financial institutions have focused on supporting start-ups, with Fukuoka declaring itself a “start-up city” since 2012. About 1,000 companies have started in the 13 years since then. However, none of them have been able to get listed.

There are also concerns about the future.

Although the city has grown by attracting young people from all over Kyushu and other regions, the total fertility rate, which indicates the number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, is low at 1.19 (the average figure for the years 2018-2022).

As a result, the city functions as a demographic “black hole,” meaning that it has a low fertility rate and continues to suck in new population, as described by Hiroya Masuda, vice chairman of the Population Strategy Council.

A national institute estimates that Fukuoka’s population will slightly decrease in 2050.

The regional situation of “Fukuoka as the sole winner” is not expected to last forever, as urban areas in Kumamoto Prefecture are rapidly catching up, with business booming as a result of a concentration of semiconductor-related companies and the development of infrastructure.

33 firms attracted

As a growth strategy amid the alarming situation, Fukuoka has set its sights on the “Global Financial City” concept as its next key to growth.

“Using finance as a hook, Fukuoka is aiming to be able to work directly with companies overseas and accept young people who want to be globally active,” said Reiji Matsuura, director of the city’s Investment Promotion Department, explaining the city’s goal.

Representative international financial cities are Singapore and Hong Kong in Asia and New York and London in Europe and the United States.

Fukuoka plans to attract finance-related companies and human resources from overseas and attract investment money as well, expecting to facilitate its urban internationalization and the growth of promising start-ups.

Fukuoka Prefecture, the city, and the local business community established “Team Fukuoka” in 2020 as a task force to carry out this plan. The effort has so far attracted 33 companies to the city.

The Fukuoka Stock Exchange also launched a new market in December, the Fukuoka PRO Market, which allows information disclosure in English, aiming to attract listings and investments from overseas. Seven companies, including Amano’s Techro, have been listed.

M-DAQ Global Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean fintech company, started operations in the city in 2022 in response to Team Fukuoka’s invitation. M-DAQ Global is a unicorn company with a market capitalization value of over $1 billion (¥150 billion).

Noboru Takahashi, 52, a cofounder of M-DAQ Global and president of its Japanese subsidiary, said: “Fukuoka has a culture of building a city that transcends the boundaries of the public and private sectors. It’s similar to Singapore.”

Fukuoka is experiencing a wave of change, successfully attracting companies such as Bank of Taiwan and NN Life Insurance Co. of the Netherlands. As a tailwind, the city’s “Tenjin Big Bang” redevelopment promotion project is expected to reconstruct about 100 buildings by the 2030s, resulting in more buildings with higher security features.

Low visibility

However, there are some issues that need to be addressed to seriously attract foreign companies.

Although Western personnel often bring their families on overseas assignments, there is only one regular international school in the city, and the number of applicants continues to exceed its capacity.

In June last year, the city was selected as one of the government’s “Special Zones for Financial and Asset Management Businesses,” which also include Tokyo and Osaka. The city will consider subsidies and tax breaks for companies that start operations in the area.

However, the prevailing view is that it will not be able to significantly narrow the gap regarding lower corporate and income tax rates in Hong Kong and other places. Attention is being focused on whether Fukuoka can take bold steps.

Fukuoka’s extremely low visibility in Europe and the United States is also a major obstacle to realizing the concept. For example, the city was not even included in the targets of the international financial city rankings by the Z/Yen Group, a British think tank, in its September 2024 edition, in which Tokyo ranked 20th.

Yuki Fukumoto, head of the Financial Research Department at NLI Research Institute, said: “Considering the current risk in China, Japan still has business opportunities. Fukuoka’s delicious food and low cost of living are attractive to foreign people. To win the competition among cities, Fukuoka needs to make efforts to gain more recognition in the world.”

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