Or more accurately: Toyota cars to Japan. Toyota recently announced that the Avensis model built at their factory in Burnaston in Derbyshire will go on sale in Japan from September. They're aiming to sell 5,000 vehicles per year. A great accolade for the British workforce, and for all the work that government, industry and countless individuals have put into assimilating and improving on Japanese standards of engineering, quality control and attention to detail.
The other Japanese auto manufacturers have put down equally strong roots in the UK. For example, last month Nissan announced that the new Qashqai model would be designed and built in the UK, in a happy meeting of British creative flair and Japanese engineering excellence. The Japanese car industry still faces challenges from the loss of manufacturing capacity and supply chain disruptions following the earthquake in March. But far from allowing that to hold them back they're looking positively to the future and investing in new technology, research and design, with low carbon development high on their agendas.
In the early days of Japanese investment in the UK it was widely predicted that it would mark the end of British manufacturing. Instead, welcoming foreign investment turned out to be a smart move and helped to revive whole sectors of British industry. Over 50% of the cars made in the UK today carry a Japanese badge. Japanese companies enjoy huge loyalty from their workforce, and by bringing investment from their Japanese suppliers too they have generated tens of thousands of jobs in the UK. The past two years have seen record levels of Japanese investment, despite the challenging economic environment – 105 projects in 2010/11, generating over 5,500 new jobs. Typically these are expansions by established players, R&D facilities, design centres and European headquarters, so all very high in terms of the value they add to the UK economy.
And once the companies are established in the UK we treat them very much as any other UK company. They are eligible, for example, for UKTI services to help grow their exports to other markets. UKTI offices in Europe and as far afield as India have undertaken work for Japanese investors in the UK, providing further examples of how foreign investment in turn boosts UK exports.
For the future we see strong possibilities for involving Japanese companies in the development of the UK's low carbon and hi-tech infrastructure: already Fujitsu is working in collaboration with Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Cisco to deliver superfast broadband services to 5 million households in the UK’s rural communities, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are investing heavily in wind power in Scotland and Hitachi are the preferred bidders for the new intercity express programme. Smart grids, carbon capture and storage and electric vehicles are other areas where Japan has some world-beating technologies which could help the UK become a leader in low carbon infrastructure - in itself a strong sales point in attracting foreign investment. I think that's what you call a virtuous circle!
Sue Kinoshita, UKTI Japan