Article: Opportunities in the Japanese Public Procurement Market

Article written by Lyckle Griek

What are your opportunities in Japanese Public Procurement?

Do the JTPP Quick Scan!

Getting to know your market is one of the more difficult issues which you must resolve before venturing into a new overseas market.  Basic questions such as “Is there a market for my products?”, ”Who would buy them?” and “Are my prices competitive?” are usually the first that come to mind.

Purchases made by Japanese government organisations represent a huge and extremely diverse market, which the EU Commission has estimated to amount to 550 billion euro per year. 

Advanced technology, railway equipment, IT-services, contract-research, public works: the list of items which governments procure is seemingly endless.

Purchases made by government organisations are to a large extent done through public competitive tendering procedures, where suppliers are invited to offer their goods or services though competitive bids. 

With calls for tenders being public information, it is possible to gain an insight into what kind of goods and services government organisations are purchasing throughout the year.

The Japan Tax and Public Procurement (JTPP) Helpdesk offers the Public Procurement Quick Scan Service, which will enable you to get a first insight into market opportunities for your line of business.  By providing us with 10 keywords relevant to your business activities, a scan of past and current calls for tender is conducted by a Japanese company specialised in monitoring calls for tender.  The JTPP Helpdesk will then translate their analysis into English for you.  The Quick Scan Report contains the following data:

• Trends in the number of calls for each of your keywords throughout the past year
• Currently ‘live’ calls for each of your keywords (Maximum of 20 calls per keyword)
• List of finished tenders for each of your keywords during the past year, with winning bids and winning suppliers (Maximum of 20 tenders per keyword)
• List of currently most successful suppliers related to your keywords

The PP Market Quick Scan is available for free for European SMEs that have signed up with the eubusinessinjapan.eu portal under public procurement.  At the JTPP Helpdesk pages you will find also much more information about how to enter the Japanese public procurement market and how the JTPP Helpdesk can support you.

First insight into Japanese public procurement? Use the PP Market Quick Scan!