With success in Japan as the foundation, onto Thailand, Korea

Kawamura: At Nippon Parking Development, we have concentrated on the subleasing business of parking lots of buildings in metropolitan areas. After achieving our goal of acquiring parking lot property of Japan’s greatest building, we attained a position in the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and set our aim to expand our parking business to Asian countries. When we founded the Thai subsidiary in 2010, Thai parking lots were around 3,000yen per month. That was one-tenth of the Japanese standard. We wanted to strive to expand our business in Thailand, which had the potential of its parking lot rates to grow several times more in the next few years. Through such a desire, we founded our first ever overseas subsidiary. When expanding business overseas, I believe that success only ensues when one has great passion for a country, so we make sure that the people involved that have a strong desire to specifically do business in that country. I personally like the warm, laid back atmosphere of Thailand, so I thought that if I am going to start an overseas subsidiary, it would be in Thailand. As of 2018, we have acquired over 40 properties. Compared to our original plan, this is a pretty slow pace. I initially thought that by utilizing the know-how of Japan, we would be able to progress at a slightly faster pace; however, parking lot business is directly tied with the specific country’s economic development, and every country has its own respective law enforcements. There were many more challenges than initially expected.

Jeong: When I was in high school, I dropped out due to the Asian currency crisis, and faced times when I had no house and no food to eat. I wanted to do business in real estate, and I had a conviction that I could do it, but I had no money and no educational background. It pained me that I had no environment set up that would allow me to do this. This is why, when establishing the Korean subsidiary, that I wanted to provide employees with the will to work the proper work, an opportunity for them to build a family and become parents. One “tsubo” (unit to measure floor space) became forty “tsubo”, the number of employees grew from 1 to 30, and we are expecting the number to grow to 50 by next year, and when seeing everyone so enthusiastic and happy to work, I find the work worthwhile. As the scale of our company is still small, I am depositing the employee’s salaries, but being able to deposit the salary of an employee whose annual salary has increased after relentless effort, feels so great. Like, thinking that the increase in monthly pay will allow an employee to go on a date with his girlfriend, or give a present to his or her parents. Eventually when we are listed on the stock exchange, and have the capacity to hire approximately 1,000 employees, I want to create a structure that provide employment for children who cannot study for financial reasons as well as financial support for them to enroll in college. The current Nippon Parking Development is exactly that model. But Korea is merely a transit point for me. I want to help those in need in other countries, through parking lot business in other developed countries.