Invest Japan Seminar in Fürth for German companies aspiring to do business in Asia

July 2019

On July 10, JETRO convened an Invest Japan Seminar in the southern German city of Fürth. JETRO took advantage of the fact that Japan was selected as a partner country of the Asia Pacific Forum organized by the Bavarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, focusing on local companies desiring to do business in Asia. The seminar was joined by more than 300 participants including German business people and university researchers, indicating strong commercial interest in Japan as well as Asia among people in southern Germany.
At the beginning, JETRO presented on the merits of investment into Japan and the allures of each local region participating in the seminar, such as incentives to assist foreign companies in establishing business sites and industrial clusters.

Following that, a presentation was made by DMG MORI Germany, a German-Japanese joint venture producing machine tools, to explain the benefits of collaboration between the two countries. The company stated that the key to its continued success as a global company is cross-cultural understanding in both technology and communication.

Seminar hall

Representatives from four companies participated in the panel session: DMG MORI Germany, AISmart Inc., which has been developing data processing technology with AI; Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik GmbH & Co. KG, a developer of sensors and measuring instruments; and EPLAN Software & Services GmbH & Co., Ltd, a company related to CAD software for designing and managing factory electric facilities. They engaged in a discussion about how Japanese and German companies can work together and realize automation and smart societies, which each face population decline. They also offered tips on entering the Japanese market from the perspectives of startups, SMEs and large companies.

A Japan Pavilion was set up in the center of the venue, and the cities of Yokohama and Kobe as well as Fukushima Prefecture and JETRO each set up PR corners to encourage German companies to invest.

JETRO will continue assisting German companies in doing business in Japan.

* This seminar was held under the consigned budget of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Venue

PR corner of local government

JETRO Desk

Seminar outline

Date and time Wednesday, July 10, 2019, 9:30 - 11:00 (Forum: 9:00 - 17:00)
Venue Fürth City Hall
Organizer Japan External Trade Organization
Visitors Approximately 330 people
Program
Opening remarks by JETRO
Masayoshi Watanabe, General Director, JETRO Düsseldorf
Keynote speech
Irene Bader, Executive Officer, Director Global Marketing, DMG MORI Germany
Panel session between Japanese and German companies
Moderator: Marcus Schürmann, Delegate of German Industry and Commerce in Japan
Panelists:
  1. Irene Bader, Executive Officer and Director of Global Marketing, DMG MORI Germany
  2. Daniele Bernardini, CEO, AISmart Inc.
  3. Johann Müller, Sales Manager Asia, Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik GmbH & Co. KG
  4. Dr. Carsten Metelmann, VP of Sales, Eplan Software & Service GmbH