RECENT ACTIVITIES OF THE EU-JAPAN CENTRE FOR INDUSTRIAL COOPERATION RELATED TO THE AGRI-FOOD SECTOR
 
Given the importance of the agri-food sector for EU SMEs interested in the Japanese market and benefiting from the EU-Japan EPA,  here is background information on the activities of the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation over the last years in this important sector.

Overall, the EU-Japan Centre’s activities combine three main dimensions in order to:

- Inform, mobilise EU and Japan stakeholders, notably from industry, and identify opportunities for EU-Japan cooperation (via events, webinars and analytical reports) and  operationalise these opportunities into concrete actions (via business matchmaking)

- Inspire, draw lessons and learn from existing EU-Japan existing business cooperation cases (via concrete case studies) to build new industry cooperation, and engage new stakeholders – snow ball effect

- Leverage (i) EU and Japanese businesses both directly (via B2B matchmaking) and indirectly (via the industrial clusters hosting many businesses, notably SMEs) and (ii) EU Member States Trade Promotion Organisation (via joint action with them – Team Europe approach) as well as Japanese actions and organisations.

It is the synergetic combination of all these actions and dimensions that brings high added value to the activities of the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation. No single ‘solve-it-all solution’, but a coherent package of actions that – together – are meaningful and effective.