[Brief translation]
On May 10, commencement ceremony for the R&D center of venture business Xenesys Inc. (Head Office: Hyogo Prefecture, President: Mr. Kiminao SATOMI), which has been jointly conducted R&D of OTEC with Saga University, was held in Nanatsujima Industrial complex of Imari-shi, Saga Prefecture, with attendance of about 70 related people. The centre is to be composed of research facility for OTEC and desalination plants, and works for plate-type heat exchangers necessary for the practical use of OTEC and desalination plants. The start of the operation is scheduled in April, 2008. Based on the construction plan, gloss floor area of the centre is about 3,000 m² (site area: about 25,000 m²), and the total cost is to amount to approximately 1,000,000,000 yen. This R&D centre, which will start with 40 employees mainly engineers at the beginning stage, and the half will be newly-recruited employees. As there is Institute of Ocean Energy, Saga University, in Imari-shi, more exact and comprehensive joint research is expected. Mr. Satomi said, "We would like to disseminate this OTEC technology to the world from the origin of OTEC, Saga Prefecture."