The Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) is the world’s largest business support network, funded by the EU Commission to support EU businesses to innovate and grow internationally. EEN comprises 600 organisations in over 50 countries. Member organisations include chambers of commerce and industry, regional development organisations, universities and research institutes, as well as innovation agencies.

Within this framework, the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation is the unique and sole representative for Japan, therefore providing Japanese SMEs with an entry door to access the EU market. Active in that capacity since 2012, we have contributed to connecting Japanese and European companies towards building business partnerships. This has been done through dissemination of Japanese companies’ business offers & request profiles, co-organisation of EU-Japan B2B matchmaking events, and other types of support. Since the EU-Japan Centre became an official member of the network, the EEN and the Centre have been working together for the past 11 years to facilitate 93 partnership agreements between Japanese and European companies and have (co-)organised more than 160 events that led to over 8,300 B2B meetings to the benefit of Japanese and European SMEs. Most successful and promising sectors have been food, ICT, industrial equipment, as well as biotech and life sciences. One recent success is the popular Japanese Food and Beverage Days online B2B event held annually since 2021, which has directly or indirectly led to many achievements. This is another indicator that EEN B2B matching services can be beneficial to Japanese companies using this support.

The Centre is thus pleased to invite Japanese SMEs to reach out to our EEN Japan Desk to help them facilitate meetings with EU companies and support their business development in the EU. European affiliates of Japanese companies can also benefit from the network by participating in B2B events online and on-site organised by various EEN partners all over the EU. (See also page XX for news from the Network)