Global Trade Alert

On June 13th, 2017, the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) signed an investment contract with Japanese company "Dynamic Map Base Corporation" for a total value of 3.7 billion Yen (32 million USD). The investment relates to the R&D and creation of high-precision three-dimensional map data to be used for self-driving vehicle systems as well as promoting new business development.

About the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ)
In 2009, INCJ was created as a public-private investment fund to financially support industries "next-generation businesses". INCJ supports projects that "combine technologies and varied expertise across industries and materialize open innovation.". According to the INCJ website, the fund has an investment capacity of up to USD 20 billion. Although characterised as a public-private partnership, in fact only 0.1 billion of the 2.6 billion USD invested in the fund was provided by the private sector. The rest came from the Japanese government. Of the 0.1 billion USD said to be contributed by private sector, 13.6 million USD was in fact provided by the Development Bank of Japan, a state-owned bank.