France's Veolia to fully enter Japanese waterworks market

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

TOKYO (AFP) — France's Veolia Water, the world's largest water company, will fully enter the Japanese waterworks market by boosting its stake in a Japanese partner, a newspaper said Sunday.

Veolia Japan Water KK, a subsidiary of the French firm, has recently upped its stake in Nishihara Environment Technology Inc, a waterworks firm, to 51 percent from the 20 percent it acquired in 2006, the Nikkei business daily said.

With the purchase, Veolia Japan sent a president to Nishihara Environment, now capitalised at 1.4 billion yen (13 million dollars), as a first step to its full entry into the Japanese waterworks market, the newspaper said.

Japan's waterworks market was liberalised in 2002 when a legal revision allowed local governments to outsource waterworks...