We hosted an awards ceremony at the Embassy last week for Japanese companies who want to do business with the United Kingdom. British Airways offered twenty free tickets (and Hilton Hotels free accommodation in the UK) for Japanese firms planning to visit Britain and source goods and services from UK companies. The aim is to get the message across to British firms that Japanese business is not only fully functioning following the terrible disaster of 11 March, but keen to buy from and invest in Britain.
The winning companies include a social networking services provider, the first company in Japan to offer media streaming services, and an importer of baby wear and goods brands, based in Sendai, the city most seriously affected by the earthquake. Others ranged across the life sciences, food and drink, electronic components, fashion and motorsports sectors.
The 20 companies (out of 120 who applied) who received the awards are just a small sample of the demand for UK products that exists in Japan. The UK sells £8 billion of goods and services to Japan each year. Enquiries from companies interested in starting to export to Japan have fallen off this year, because of the decline in the Japanese economy, and also, I think, because a lot of companies still assume that the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis have brought Japan to a complete halt.
We have to get the message across that this isn’t true. The Embassy sponsors a large number of trade missions each year. Some of them are continuing to recruit good numbers, but others are reporting a decline. And in some cases, this appears to be because there are still fears about radiation etc, in spite of our and other Governments advice that, outside the very small area around the nuclear reactor where there has been serious damage, the rest of Japan is completely safe and the risks minimal to non-existent.
So this will be one of our major themes this autumn. Japan is open for business and virtually back to normal. We need to re-engage.
David Warren
British Ambassador to Japan
Read David Warren's regular blog on the UK Foreign Office's Global Conversations site at http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/warren/