Social business hub for Asia

Japan's Fukuoka city mayor teams up with Yunus

From left: Hiroshi Yoshida, mayor of Fukuoka City, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Sususu Ishihara, chairman of Kyushu Railway Company, and Setuo Arikawa, president of Kyushu University, pose after signing a joint declaration to launch the Social Business Hub in Asia, in Japan on Friday.

Photo: YUNUS CENTRE

Staff Correspondent

Japan has established a social business hub in Asia in collaboration with Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, Yunus Centre said in a statement yesterday.

The hub launched in Fukuoka city on Kyushu Island, Japan, will promote social business, a concept developed by Yunus, as a means of tackling social problems across Asia.

Hiroshi Yoshida, Japan's Fukuoka city mayor, signed a joint declaration with Yunus, Susumi Ishihara, chairman of Kyushu Railways, Setuo Arikawa, president of Kyushu University, in Fukuoka on Friday.

As a beginning, Yoshida announced that he would undertake the first social business in the city on behalf of the city government aiming at creating employment for difficult-to-employ young people.

If this is successful he will undertake social businesses in other fields, the mayor added.

Fukuoka is home to Kyushu University, which has had cooperation with Grameen Bank in Bangladesh since 2007 to work on technological innovation to solve problems of the poor in Bangladesh, the statement added.

It also established the Grameen Creative Lab, which will promote the concept and practice of social business in Japan and beyond, based on seven principles of social business defined by Yunus.

Fukuoka is the home of the Asian Cultural Prize that Yunus received in 2001.

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