Japan's unmanned helicopter to help agriculture sector

Shizuoka, Japan / Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: The Miho-no-Matsubara, which is a seven-kilometer seashore area lined with pine trees along the coast of Miho Peninsula in Japan, was added to the UNESCO's World Heritage List as part of the Fujisan Cultural Site.

However, the pine trees in the area start dying because of pine wilt disease, spread from the import lumber trees.

"There are 30,000 pine trees, but 700 trees are dying every year by the influence of the pine wilt disease. The infected pine trees need to be cut down and fumigate.To prevent pine trees from the disease, Shizuoka city decided to utilize an unmanned helicopter at first time to spray pesticides in the Miho-no-Matsubara," said Toshio Mizoguchi, an employee of Shizuoka Skytech Co. Ltd.

An unmanned helicopter "FAZER" is designed and manufactured by Yamaha Motor mainly for use in the agricultural industry.

"This is equipped with maximum 24 litters of pesticides, which covers 0.8 hectares and completes within 10 minutes. The unmanned helicopter works effectively and efficiently, it does not spread pesticides outside the targeted area," said another employee, Kazuyuki Kawashima.

The test for pesticide spraying conducted last year proved that it has succeeded to reduce to a quarter of pine trees needed to be cut down compared to the previous year.

"We are conducting feasibility test in Thailand. We are now planning to utilize for the paddy rice seeding and sugar cane plantation," said an employee of Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd, Yoshihiro Hase.

When these cases attract people's attention, the new field of unmanned helicopter will establish an active market in the near future.

"Unmanned helicopter makes possible that could not be before. We want

to provide new solutions for the people in the field. We are planning to utilize this for the rescue activities at the disaster in mountain areas, by the use in agriculture at the same time," Mizoguchi added.

Japan is also expanding its global reach by constructing infrastructure for retail industry.

The largest retail corporation in Japan, AEON Group, entered Vietnam

in 2014 by introducing the first and the largest Japanese style shopping mall at Tan Phu Celadon city.

Since it's opening in January 2014, AEON Tan Phu Celadon mall has attracted 12 million annually.

The raising consumer appetite and on-going progress of the new urban city development in Vietnam, makes plenty space for AEON to advance new General Merchandise Stores.

Supported by one million customers every month, AEON Tan Phu Celadon Mall is constantly achieving the sales plan.

"Our customers are mostly families and young teens. As a result, the daily necessities at supermarket, kids and baby related items are selling very well. Our Sushi and bakery section at the supermarket are successful. Our signature "Safe and Secure" fresh food items and vegetables at the food section are selling very well," said General Director of AEON Vietnam Co., Ltd., Nishitoge Yasuo.

"These vegetables are locally cultivated in Da Lat, using the Japanese agriculture technology introduced from Nagano. Also, the imported items from Japan are selling very well. We aim to gain support from our customers by differentiating with those items," he added.

AEON also provides amusements for the customers by incorporating the number of restaurants. As a result, it attracts many customers and makes half of the total sales in the tenant floor.

"In Vietnam, there are very few places where children can enjoy, it's very hot and not safe especially in the outdoors. By taking such needs from our customers, we built a massive kids' play area inside our shopping mall to provide more amusement for the families. This has been extremely successful, and increased more family visitors on the weekends, creating motivation to shop at AEON," Yasuo added.

AEON is planning to open the 3rd shopping mall in Vietnam in the late of October 2015, which will be the first shopping mall in Hanoi.

The company also plans to open the 4th shopping mall in Ho Chi Minh in next summer.

The company aims to open 20 shopping malls across the country by the year of 2020.