On April 28, Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s new tender information portal for SMEs, ‘Business Chance Navi 2020” officially started its operations. The portal is part of the ‘SME World promotion project 2020’ led by the Tokyo Metropolitan Small and Medium Enterprise Support Center and aims to interest more SMEs to participate in public procurement tenders ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.  The tender information portal is an initiative modelled after a similar project undertaken in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics.

The portal is currently only available in Japanese and there are no concrete plans to offer the service in other languages. Foreign SMEs can however register to the site to monitor tender opportunities and create a company profile to market their products and services.

The site lists tender notices issued by TMG, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing committee and national public organizations and agencies. Beside public organisations, contract notices by private entities are also included. Here the platform also allows users to contact the issuing companies.   It is also possible to set email alerts for the various categories by entering keywords. The portal also has a matching function and allows registered users to search among the registered companies. At the start of the service, a total of 614 companies were registered. 

Registration is possible with an online form in Japanese.  JTPP Helpdesk can assist EU SMEs with the registration process and creation of a company profile. The Helpdesk will also monitor notices on the portal and include notices deemed interesting in its Weekly Tender Digest Mailing List.

Source: 中小企業世界発信プロジェクト2020