Forval Launches the Kurito Ippei Wide-Area Co-Creation Project as an Implementation Model for Its F-Japan Initiative

Forval Corporation, headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo and led by President and Representative Director Masanori Nakajima, announced the full-scale launch of the Kurito Ippei Wide-Area Co-Creation Project. Starting from Ichinoseki City in Iwate Prefecture, the project will cover a broader area including Kurihara City and Tome City in Miyagi Prefecture, as well as Hiraizumi Town in Iwate Prefecture. It is positioned as an implementation model for Forval’s regional revitalization strategy, the F-Japan Initiative. The project aims to build a new regional revitalization model by integrating visualization of local company data, hands-on business support, and the creation of human resource circulation through industry-government-academia-finance collaboration. Forval plans to develop it as a horizontally deployable model under the F-Japan Initiative. “Kurito Ippei” refers to a wide-area co-creation zone that treats Kurihara City and Tome City in northern Miyagi Prefecture, together with Ichinoseki City and Hiraizumi Town in southern Iwate Prefecture, as one integrated regional bloc. Through collaboration among industry, government, academia, and financial institutions, the area aims to address shared challenges such as population decline, labor shortages, and delayed digital transformation. The four municipalities in northern Miyagi and southern Iwate have many small and medium-sized enterprises supporting the local economy, but they also face common and complex issues including population decline, labor shortages, business succession problems, and delays in DX. These challenges are difficult to solve through support for individual companies or by single institutions alone, making it necessary to create a mechanism that allows support to circulate sustainably across the entire region. Forval has worked with Ichinoseki Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Next IWATE on a locally rooted preliminary implementation called the Ichinoseki Model, while communicating with relevant municipalities, regional local governments, financial institutions, educational institutions, and specialists. As part of proactive support for local companies, the model includes understanding the actual conditions of local businesses, visualizing management status, providing hands-on support to solve management issues, and making policy proposals based on data. Based on the Ichinoseki Model developed with local stakeholders, this project seeks to create a new co-creation model that realizes data-driven regional support without relying on intuition or experience, while simultaneously promoting the growth of local companies and circulation of human resources. A key feature is that the project does not merely involve outside companies providing individual support; instead, it aims to build support functions within the region itself and establish a sustainable support system that can operate locally. Through this approach, Forval aims to shift toward a self-sustaining regional support model in which communities can identify and continue solving their own challenges. In the future, the project also envisions expansion across the Kurito Ippei area, including Kurihara, Tome, Ichinoseki, and Hiraizumi. The project is positioned as one implementation model under Forval’s F-Japan regional revitalization strategy. It aims to create a highly reproducible support model that integrates the full process from understanding local company conditions to hands-on support and policy recommendations. Going forward, Forval will continue enhancing a sustainable regional support model based on the knowledge and results cultivated in the Ichinoseki area, while considering expansion to other regions. The project will build a new local co-creation model centered on four functions: visualizing company conditions and using data through the data co-creation platform kizuna PARK “Ichinoseki Hiroba”; creating human resource circulation through the development of “Company Doctors”; providing hands-on support to local companies; and establishing a support framework through industry-government-academia-finance collaboration. The project will create a cycle of understanding company conditions, visualization, support, and policy utilization, enabling more advanced data-based decision-making and support. The project has already gone through several proof-of-concept initiatives. In August 2025, Forval and Next IWATE jointly announced the start of the Ichinoseki Model initiative. In November 2025, Next IWATE joined as the on-site lead and began surveys of local companies. In December 2025, a business plan based on the Ichinoseki Model won four awards at the Regional Revitalization Policy Idea Contest 2025, including the Minister in Charge of Regional Revitalization Award. In February 2026, an award report session and celebration were held, hosted by Next IWATE and co-hosted by Shimada Production and Forval. Next IWATE is a co-creation partner company in Forval’s F-Japan Initiative. In the survey process, Next IWATE directly visited more than 40 local companies and carefully gathered the voices of business owners. Through these initiatives, Forval confirmed that the model is feasible in the region and has received a certain level of recognition. Forval Corporation, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Standard Market under code 8275, focuses on hands-on consulting for small and medium-sized enterprises and small businesses. It provides management support services in five fields: information and communications, overseas business, environment, human resources and education, and entrepreneurship and business succession. Through its proprietary “Company Doctor” model, which refers to next-generation management consultants, Forval provides integrated services from visualization of management issues to improvement proposals and execution support. It also delivers high-value support for enhancing corporate value, including ESG management, human capital management, and DX/GX promotion. Under its regional revitalization strategy, the F-Japan Initiative, Forval also promotes the development and horizontal expansion of regional co-creation models through collaboration with municipalities, private companies, educational institutions, and financial institutions. Company overview: the company name is Forval Corporation; the representative is President and Representative Director Masanori Nakajima; the company was established on September 18, 1980; and its address is Aoyama Oval Building 14F, 5-52-2 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. Please visit the company website for details.