## Section 5 Promoting Integrated Development of Hokkaido

# 1 Promoting the New Hokkaido Comprehensive Development Plan to Lead the Era of the Global Environment

## (1) Promoting the Hokkaido Comprehensive Development Plan

Japan has followed an active policy of developing Hokkaido to help resolve the problems then facing the nation and to achieve powerful regional growth by taking advantage of the excellent resources and characteristics of Hokkaido.

Measures are being taken focusing on the fields of food, tourism, environment and energy to realize the three strategic goals of “Open and competitive Hokkaido,” “Sustainable and beautiful Hokkaido” and “Hokkaido comprising varied, individualistic regions” on the basis of the seventh phase of the “New Hokkaido Comprehensive Development Plan to Lead the Era of the Global Environment.”

Because the Plan is scheduled to be overhauled about five years after its formulation, the tasks the Plan should cope with and the directions in which it should head were reviewed in consideration of changes, etc. in the socioeconomic climate in FY2012.

## (2) Working to realize the Plan

## ① Strengthening the total food supply capacities

To strengthen the food supply capacities of Hokkaido that command 25% of the nation’s farmland area, the farmland in Hokkaido has been consolidated in larger lots, etc. to augment the productive capacities. The MLIT also supports efforts to create higher added values through the implementation of more advanced expertise of quality control, collaboration with tourism and so on. In addition, the MLIT promotes the development of the infrastructures relevant to tougher logistics. Approaches to fostering food industries include implementing HOP (Hokkaido export Platform) to facilitate direct, stable export of Hokkaido-made products.

## ② Creating internationally competitive, appealing tourist sites

Efforts are underway to improve the tourist reception environment in Hokkaido by trimming travel time and easing round-trips through infrastructures development, working on the Scenic Byway Hokkaido campaign and so on to take advantage of the potentials of Hokkaido with its appealing tourist resources, such as scenic beauty and food. Further, multi-language editions of a drive handbook are distributed for the sake of better tourist convenience. Regional efforts aimed at promoting Hokkaido as a host to international conventions of conferences (MICE) in Hokkaido are also supported.

③ Forming a sustainable regional community that lives symbiotically with the nature

The preservation and reproduction of marshlands, the construction of breakwaters conscious of the habitat environment for aquatic organisms, purification of rivers and lakes, etc. are being promoted to shape a sustainable regional community that lives

Source) East Okhotsk Scenic Byway

symbiotically with the nature. Further, since Hokkaido is rich in renewable energy resources, efforts to exploit them are being deployed across Hokkaido.

## ⑷ Enhanced network and mobility to support internal and external interactions

To achieve the three strategic goals of the Hokkaido Comprehensive Development Plan, the MLIT has driven the development of key transport infrastructures, such as high-standard highways, airports and harbors, the reinforcement of logistic network facilities, etc. effectively in collaboration with various entities. The MLIT also carries on active efforts to add to the safety and reliability of winter-time transportation.