MAEBASHI--Gunma Prefecture is trying to cash in on its reputation as a relatively low-risk area for earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters to entice companies to set up shop in this inland region of central Japan.

And the initiative seems to be paying off.

Telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. is set to shortly transfer some functions of its main office currently handled in Tokyo to Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture.

Eat&Foods Co. in Tokyo, famous for its Osaka Ohsho brand of frozen gyoza, recently built a factory in the prefecture.

“Gunma Prefecture is known for its relatively lessened temblor risk,” noted a representative of Eat&Foods’ parent firm. “The historical record also shows that typhoons and inundation from torrential downpours caused damage there on fewer occasions.”

Eat&Foods has two factories in Itakura, Gunma Prefecture, and started construction on a third plant there last December.

“Minimizing damage from natural disasters while ensuring stability of food production is essential for sustainable business activities,” the company official added. “Reducing the danger of a disaster striking is one of the most important factors.”

To lure companies, Gunma prefectural authorities emphasize its “lower disaster risk.”

A key question, though, is whether Gunma Prefecture is really resistant to calamities.

As evidence to corroborate its argument, the local government developed a map to show how many times temblors with an intensity of 4 or stronger on the Japanese seismic scale of 7 occurred between January 1919 and March 2022 in Gunma Prefecture and surrounding regions.

The data revealed that 73 such quakes hit Gunma, while 238, 161, 187 and 159 were reported in neighboring Tochigi, Saitama, Nagano and Niigata prefectures, respectively. So, in actual fact, Gunma Prefecture experiences fewer earthquakes, at least based on the data presented.

The central government’s 2020 National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan, released in March last year by the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, displays details of the projected risk of each region being hit by a quake measuring lower 6 or stronger within 30 years.

Among prefectural capitals in the Kanto region, Maebashi logged the lowest risk of 6.4 percent, followed by Utsunomiya at 12.7 percent, Yokohama at 38.1 percent, Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward at 47.2 percent, Saitama at 60.2 percent, Chiba at 62.3 percent and Mito at 80.6 percent.

In addition, Gunma Prefecture came up trumps when it came to the likelihood of being inundated by torrential rains.

According to land ministry statistics on flooding, Gunma suffered 55.9 billion yen ($390 million) in flood damage over the 10 years from 2011 through 2020, about half or less the figures for Tokyo and five other prefectures in the Kanto region.

A nationwide geological ranking released in 2016 by ground survey firm Jibannet Co. in Tokyo explains Gunma Prefecture’s ability to withstand natural disasters.

Jibannet calculated the overall geological security ranking for 10.9 million building plots, taking into account five elements, such as easiness to shake in quakes, risk of inundation and landslide hazard.

The average level for each prefecture was evaluated. Higher values mean lower disaster risks.

The findings showed Gunma Prefecture scored 78.99, ranking second nationwide only after Okinawa Prefecture at 82.75. Other prefectures in northern Kanto earned high rankings, with Tochigi placing fourth at 78.63 and Ibaraki seventh at 75.19.

“Ash from ancient eruptions of volcanoes in the Kanto region, along with other factors, helped form flat plateaus in many areas,” said a Jibannet representative in explaining the rankings.

Now that reduced disaster risks are backed up by a range of data, Gunma Prefecture is going all-out to attract capital investment.

“Awareness of disaster risks has heightened since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011 and recent large-scale floods,” said an official from the prefecture’s future investment and digital industry division. “Companies are increasingly apt to pick out sites with fewer disasters on record in the hope of conducting stable, sustainable business operations.”

The prefectural representative said a high level of safety offers an advantage in luring companies.

“We are stressing that our prefecture is characterized by fewer earthquakes and floods,” the official added.