Uwajima City, Ehime Prefecture and Change Holdings Sign Comprehensive Partnership Agreement for Regional Revitalization and Sustainable Urban Development

Uwajima City, Ehime Prefecture (Mayor: Fumiaki Okahara, hereinafter "Uwajima City") and Change Holdings, Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and Representative Director: Satoshi Fukudome, hereinafter "Change HD") have signed a comprehensive partnership agreement*1 regarding regional revitalization and sustainable urban development. Through this agreement, and in order to realize Uwajima City's "City of Choice 2.0" vision, the parties will leverage Change HD's group assets to build a "policy ecosystem" by promoting DX, fostering industry-academia-government-citizen collaboration, utilizing external talent, securing financial resources, and concretizing business concepts. This marks the first time Change HD has signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with a local government in Japan.

*1 A "comprehensive partnership agreement" refers to a cooperative relationship that spans multiple fields, distinct from single-purpose partnerships.

■ Overview of the Comprehensive Partnership Agreement

• Purpose: To strengthen cooperation based on a shared understanding of regional issues, and to work on regional revitalization and sustainable urban development by effectively utilizing human resources, physical resources, financial resources, and technology.
• Areas of Cooperation:
  (1) Regional revitalization through industry-academia-government-citizen collaboration
  (2) Creation of a 'related population' (people connected to the region)
  (3) Promotion of regional and public DX
  (4) Other matters related to the promotion of regional revitalization and sustainable urban development

Since 2022, Change HD's subsidiary, Govermates, Inc. (Headquarters: Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture; Representative Director: Fuyu Tanaka), has been supporting the city's DX promotion. This agreement further strengthens these efforts, utilizing the assets of over 20 companies within the Change Group to implement measures for regional revitalization and sustainable development.

■ Key Initiatives to be Promoted by Uwajima City and Change HD

• Strengthening the public-private partnership framework and developing projects using diverse financial and material resources to promote regional revitalization and sustainable urban development.
• Enhancing internal planning functions and creating mechanisms to solve regional issues while incorporating the expertise of external talent in formulating comprehensive plans and various policies.
• Introducing methods to collect and reflect a wider range of opinions by utilizing both face-to-face and digital technologies to enhance resident participation.
• Promoting new initiatives that contribute to information dissemination and building continuous connections with the region to create and expand the 'related population'.

Change HD is promoting sustainable regional development alongside local governments by leveraging the talent, expertise, services, and networks of its group companies, in addition to visualizing regional issues, reforming operations, and supporting the implementation of digital technology. Through this agreement, Change HD will further support Uwajima City's efforts in regional revitalization, the creation of a related population, industry-academia-government-citizen collaboration, and public DX. Uwajima City is advancing new measures across a wide range of fields to realize "City of Choice 2.0," including refining regional resources, promoting tourism, developing agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and commerce, enhancing childcare and education, and strengthening disaster prevention, regional transportation, and medical welfare. To steadily advance these initiatives, the city requires a partner capable of supporting everything from policy formulation to execution, public-private partnerships, and digital utilization. By partnering with Change HD, with whom it has already collaborated on DX, the city aims to accelerate the resolution of regional issues and sustainable urban development. Moving forward, both parties will build upon their existing collaboration to advance sustainable urban development that balances regional earning power with quality of life, while promoting regional revitalization by scaling successful models nationwide.