Japan Business & innovation Hub has been established

Japan Bridge Scandinavia is delighted to announce that our collaboration with the City of Malmö and the Minc Startup House has resulted in the establishment of Japan Business & Innovation Hub in Malmö. It was officially inaugurated on 20 May by Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, Mayor of Malmö municipality. Around one hundred people attended the ceremony where we celebrated our new hub. The hub aims to encourage mutual exchanges of innovations and business opportunities between Malmö-Lund/Sweden and Japan.

Intelligence Watch, a Swedish think tank, has written the new report “Scandinavia’s Sustainable Tech Banana Beckons Japan” about the existing business, research and political relations between Japan and Scandinavia. It recommends Japan to collaborate more with Europe’s more sustainable version of California’s Silicon Valley, which in the report is called Scandinavia’s Sustainable Tech Banana due […]

Powerful neutron sources

J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex) became the second high-power neutron spallation source in the world in 2008. ESS (European Spallation Source) in Lund, Sweden, is the third. The two facilities exchange technical information and experiences since 2012. In 2017 the Memorandum of Collaboration was renewed in front of Prime Ministers Abe and Löfven and again in 2022 by director Schober, ESS, and director Kobayashi, J-PARC.

Swedish dads - a model for Japan?

Could dads with strollers become a boon to socioeconomic success, innovation and productivity growth, and even help slow Japan’s population decline? In an op-ed in The Japan Times, Anders Olshov, Noboru Konno and Jesper Edman suggest they might. Japan should look to Sweden to understand how the Nordic country is tackling comparable social and economic challenges. Interviews with dads walking strollers are highly recommended, they write.

Japan-EU Partnership

The Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) entered into force on 1 February 2019, opening a new marketplace home to 635 million inhabitants and almost a third of the world’s GDP. Together with the EU-Japan Strategic Partnership and the EU-Japan Green Alliance
 t brings the people of Japan and Europe closer than ever before.

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Our mission is to enhance social, economic and cultural relations between Japan and Sweden/Scandinavia.

By joining Japan Bridge Scandinavia, your organisation will have the opportunity to be part of the process of building deeper relations between Japan and Scandinavia and interact with stakeholders, experts and policymakers in a variety of settings

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Background

On 10 November 2019, the Swedish think tank Intelligence Watch highlighted the strong business and research ties between Malmö-Lund in Southern Sweden and Japan. Companies like Axis (a Canon subsidiary) and Sony employ 3,000 people there, while 70% of the cars in the local harbor are Japanese. 

Other collaborations include J-PARC and ESS in high-power neutron spallation, and Nippon Foundation’s major funding of the World Maritime University. Moreover, several Japanese firms have their Nordic headquarters in the region, and companies such as Alfa Laval and Tetra Pak consider Japan a key market. In September 2020, a significant meeting led to the agreement to establish Japan House Scandinavia in Malmö.

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