Japanese and EU decision makers presented their visions for long term climate policies and discussed the opportunities and the challenges ahead on decarbonisation of their economies. Business representatives and experts gave their views in a panel discussion on the business opportunities offered through decarbonisation.

Overview:

International region-to-region cooperation is an effective means for bringing dynamism to regional economy by internationalizing activities of local entities, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Forms of regional cooperation are well diversified, covering wide range of activities such as export-import of commodities, trade in services, investment, business partnerships (B2Bs), collaboration in research, technology development and innovation, and promotion of people mobility. Such cases of region-to-region cooperation in industry, trade, investment and innovation already exist between Europe and Japan, including collaboration between clusters.

On the occasion of the visit of Mr. Julien Guerrier, Director of the European Commission Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation organized a briefing on EASME's support for European SMEs.

The EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation and the European Commission (DG SANTE) jointly organised the international seminar on animal health in Tokyo.