He also established the Takarazuka Revue and the Hankyu professional baseball team (the predecessors of Orix Buffaloes) to attract passengers.

In the realm of railway management, he possessed an exceptionally keen perspective and skill, but he also exhibited a profound lack of understanding when it came to subway systems.

"[4] He also claimed, "The railway business in Osaka City will inevitably go bankrupt," [5] and expressed concerns that "the construction will become a relic of the Showa era, an anachronistic example."

Ichizō Kobayashi was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lead a diplomatic mission to the Dutch East Indies in 1940.

On September 12, 1940, a Japanese delegation of 24, led by Kobayashi as the Minister of Commerce and Industry, arrived in Batavia to renegotiate political and economic relations between Japan and the Dutch East Indies.

Later, all further negotiations were conducted via the Dutch colonial administration in Batavia and Sukabumi, and received support from the Japanese Consulate General, in the persons of Matatoshi Saito (before 1941) and later by Yutaka Ishizawa.

In the book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor written by Robert Stinnett:

On the table were proposals involving Japanese rights to obtain oil and petroleum products from the Netherlands' enormous reserves in the Dutch East Indies.

One of the delegates, Japanese minister of commerce Ichizō Kobayashi, demanded that the Dutch guarantee a delivery schedule covering a five-year period.