EU-Japan Business Round Table
Tokyo Meeting, 19-20 April 2010

“EU-Japan business: gearing up for the next decade”

1. Introduction
The EU-Japan Business Round Table, a forum of some 50 Japanese and European businessleaders, met in Tokyo on 19 and 20 April 2010 under the co-chairmanship of Messrs. Tadashi
Okamura (Toshiba) and Jean-Yves Le Gall (Arianespace).
On this occasion, the EU-Japan Business Round Table agreed this set of recommendations, tobe handed over to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, President Herman Van Rompuy andPresident José Manuel Barroso at the official residence of the Prime Minister of Japan inTokyo.
The recommendations first and foremost address the future of the EU-Japan economic
relationship after the “2001-2011 EU-Japan Action Plan” elapses next year. Beyond this,business leaders discussed economic cooperation in the area of innovation, the establishment of
global standards on financial assets, and industrial and R&D initiatives to tackle climatechange. The five working parties of the Business Round Table presented specificrecommendations.
A discussion also took place on the take-up by governments in the EU and Japan of Business
Round Table recommendations over the past ten years, and how to take advantage of processes
leading to change so as to maximize the effect of future recommendations. Business leaders
exchanged opinions on concrete goals for the future and the membership structure.
This year’s meeting of the Business Round Table saw Mr Okamura step down as Japan-side
co-chairman. The BRT Members expressed their appreciation for Mr Okamura’s leadershipover the past four years and his efforts to strengthen the relationship between the EU and Japan.
Mr Hiromasa Yonekura, Chairman of Sumitomo Chemical Corporation Ltd was unanimouslywelcomed as the successor to Mr. Okamura.

12. Overall Priorities
Emerging nations, such as the BRICs, have an increasing economic and political weight inworld affairs. Considering that the EU and Japan not only represent 40% of world GDP, butalso share similar interests and are facing the same challenges, BRT business leaders areconvinced that EU-Japan cooperation is increasingly important to ensure that their interests aretaken into account in global initiatives to foster the world economic recovery after the recent
financial and industrial crisis, as well as global action to address climate change.
Business leaders urged both sides’ authorities to strengthen their cooperation framework anddevelop a more effective and efficient relationship, aiming for high levels of economic growth
while supporting the development of emerging economies and acting as a driving force behind
the world economy.
To this effect, the BRT input into the future of the EU-Japan economic relationship after the“2001-2011 EU-Japan Action Plan” elapses next year, underlines that the EU and Japan now
tend to prioritise matters other than their relationship, at the political level and also at thebusiness, industrial and academic levels. The EU-Japan Business Round Table urges
authorities to “reset” the EU-Japan bilateral relations by establishing the rightframework, and making the EU-Japan strategic partnership a reality in the economic sector inorder to enhance trade and investment.
At the EU-Japan Summit in May 2009, it was agreed that EU and Japan would focus on a few
specific non-tariff issues expected to bring concrete outcomes, in a mutually beneficial way ina short period, utilising existing mechanisms and to review progress at the latest at the Summit
in 2010. The Round Table recommends that, if it is concluded at the Summit that sufficient
progress has been made towards effective solution and implementation of these issues, the EUand Japanese Authorities should discuss with all stakeholders whether a binding trade andinvestment agreement would be able to deliver where current dialogues have not.
More specifically, the Business Round Table recommends that both authorities startnegotiations on a balanced and mutually beneficial bilateral agreement, as soon as the EU andJapanese Authorities agree that the right conditions are met, in order to promote an ambitious
expansion of trade and investment between the EU and Japan.
The Round Table also urged authorities to address the challenges posed by climate change andby the fast-growing demand for energy, raw materials and food resulting in harmful supply
shortages. Finally, it urged them to promote cooperation in industrial research anddevelopment, as well as joint programmes enhancing EU-Japan cooperation in next-generation
technologies.

2

3. Immediate Action Items – Requests to the EU and Japanese authorities
Working Party (A) Strengthening the EU-Japan relationship Recommends that both authorities start negotiations on a balanced and mutually beneficial
bilateral agreement, as soon as the EU and Japanese Authorities agree that the rightconditions are met, in order to promote an ambitious expansion of trade and investment
between the EU and Japan.
 Support the WTO Doha Development Agenda
 Support WTO efforts to prevent the closing of world markets and cooperate towards thesuccessful conclusion of the Doha Round by end 2010.
 Apply international standards and enhance co-operation in the promotion of new global
standards
 Adopt international product standards and take the lead in promoting new international
standards where needed. Mutually recognize products certified under similar andequivalent product standards and cooperate in efforts to harmonize regulations and systems
where possible.
 Support timely development of business Facilitate the movement of workers between the EU and Japan. Promote internationalframeworks enabling secure movement of data within business organizations.
 Integrated approach for CO2 reduction and Better Regulation
Working party (B) General: Formulate concrete action plans for the Japan’s “New Growth Strategies”
focusing on LS & BT fields as well as a new strategy for promotion of R&D and faster
applications in LS & BT.
 HealthCare: Map out a “Grand design” of a nationwide database electronically integrating
individual health/medical records as a basic for Japan’s health policy to increase quality
and efficiency of healthcare as well as to accelerate innovation in medical andpharmaceutical fields.
 HealthCare: Improve the pharmaceutical business environment by proceeding regulatory
harmonization and further extension of “Mutual Recognition Agreement” in order to avoid
redundant inspections of manufacturing facilities (GMP for injectable drugs) andestablishing more competitive pricing systems to promote innovations.
 Plant Protection & Biotechnology: Enhance international cooperation in development ofplants with new beneficial traits / promotion of industry & academia cooperation andshorten review times for new applications/ registrations and promote higher food selfsufficiency of Japan.

3





Animal Health: Introduce a 1-1-1 concept of all animal health products, further harmonize
the regulatory requirements for product registration, shorten review times and recognize
the GMP certification for veterinary products.
Industrial Biotechnology: To enhance the global competitiveness of the bio-based
economy through increase cooperation between the EU and Japan.

Working party(C) Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can contribute significantly toachieving a Low-Carbon Society. Governments should support the development ofcommon metrics for GHG reductions and should play the role of a facilitator e.g. regarding
the dialogue between the ICT sector and other sectors. In order to accelerate theinvestment in Smart grid, authorities should foster smart meter roll-out e.g. by starting thedialogue with industry for harmonization of smart meter features.
 ICT industry should play a strategic role in economic policy in order to overcome theeconomic crisis.. Thus, ICT strategy should be consistent with governments’ growthstrategy. Governments should create regulatory and economic incentives for theutilization of NGN. Governments’ support is also expected for facilitating the use of cloudcomputing, cooperation with regard to R&D, standardization and international
harmonization of regulations
 Furthermore, to realize growth driven by ICT, The Round Table recommends theapplication of reduced VAT to eBooks and the maintenance and joint review of theWTO’s Information Technology Agreement (ITA), which has led to economic growth.

Working party(D) While we agree that financial reforms based on the G20 Summit common principles needto proceed, we wish to point out that careful balance between innovativeness andregulation must be struck, and that the characteristics of each county and region should befully considered.
 We support the trends towards accounting standard convergence and the enhancement ofstandard setter’s governance. We wish to point out that the view of a company’smanagement is also important when setting standards. Changes in accounting standards
have impact on corporate activities and thus on the economy.
 Removal of double taxation is still an important issue and it is important to ensure an arena
for wide-ranging dialogues between the tax authorities. We also believe that thetransparent and fair taxation are extremely important for global companies, and thus hopethat transparent and fair tax reform and its execution are continued.

4

Working party(E) Global warming and water problems
Japan and the EU need to intensify cooperation on water problems as one of the mostimportant issues relating to global warming and climate change. EU and Japan should
establish common EU-Japan venues for joint development of contributions towards
international cooperation, assignation and mechanisms.
Fossil Energy and Raw Materials
Japan and EU need to identify actions to be taken in international fora such as OECD, andpromote a coherent set of rules on a access to raw materials. Japan and EU need topromote a level of playing field for access to raw materials through their respectivepolicies.

Promote specific cooperation in industrial and research development
Joint programs enhancing Japan-EU research projects on next-generation technologies andsolutions should be designed in cooperation between Japan and EU academia and theprivate sector.

Continuous cooperation on global warming
Japan and EU need to accelerate dialogue on global warming. The finale agreement built
on the Copenhagen Accord must include all major emitters with verifiable commitmentsthat establish a level playing field.

5