Ch1 The Background of Hometown Investment Trust Funds (Naoyuki Yoshino).- Ch2 Supply of Risk Capital for Regional Development in Japan (Atsuo Akai).- Ch3 Hometown Investment Trust Funds in Japan (Masami Komatsu).- Ch4 Hometown Investment Trust Funds for Regional Development (Norifumi Sugimoto).- Ch5 HIT as a Form of Microfi nance in Asia (Yuka Morita).- Ch6 Concluding Remarks and the Way Forward (Shuhei Shiozawa).