Owners of small businesses in western Osaka Prefecture have teamed up in hopes of putting a small satellite into orbit in 2005, aiming to develop a local-level space industry and revive the sagging economy.
"There are businesses using satellites for such purposes as surveys of river contamination and various scientific studies in space," said Toyohiko Aoki, president of Aoki Co. during a regional forum arranged by the Cabinet Office earlier this year. Aoki Co., a firm in the ironworks business, is based in Higashi-Osaka.
The office sponsored the forum to consider how to rejuvenate regional economies in line with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's structural reform policy.
Aoki, who spoke as a panelist, said some 8,000 small companies do business in the city, with about 120 of them boasting their own unique technologies.