Gateway to Asia: Potentiality of Naha Airport's cargo hub

         
Author Name ITO Tadashi  (Institute of Developing Economies, JETRO) /IWAHASHI Roki  (University of the Ryukyus) /ISHIKAWA Yoshifumi  (Nanzan University) /NAKAMURA Ryohei  (Faculty Fellow, RIETI)
Creation Date/NO. July 2015 15-J-036
Research Project Seeking Sustainable Regional Economies in the Economic Globalization Age
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Abstract

Using methodologies in economics, this paper analyzes how the recently launched cargo hub at Naha Airport can contribute to an expansion of Japan's trade with Asian countries and also to sustainable development of Okinawa prefecture. As to the first issue of trade with Asia, we conducted a simulation analysis on an increase of exports by estimating both the transport cost and transport time elasticities of demand using the most disaggregated export customs data of Japan. The simulation result shows that the export value will increase by 11% in the case of a 30% reduction in transport time and no change in transport cost. As to the second issue of sustainable development, we computed the ripple effects of Naha Airport's cargo hub using an input-output table for Okinawa prefecture which we constructed, finding that the sum of the ripple effect and an increase in exports of made-in-Okinawa goods reaches a mere 0.3% of the prefecture's gross domestic product (GDP).