Yokohama’s Regional Business Conference (RBC) took place from October 8-10 earlier this month. Representatives from 9 North American and German Life Science companies were invited to Yokohama to promote the city’s business environment.

Yokohama City proposed a plan to invite foreign companies and attract foreign direct investment, which was then selected to be a part of the “Regional Business Conference” program initiated by the national government (Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry) and JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), leading to this instance of the program being implemented in Yokohama through joint cooperation of the three entities.

During this event, Yokohama Mayor Fumiko Hayashi met with the visiting representatives to personally introduce Yokohama as an “innovation city” where worldwide powerhouses in advanced manufacturing, R&D centers of large global corporations, and many important players in the Life Science industry have been accumulating.

In conjunction with the international conference BioJapan2019 that was occurring at the same time in Yokohama, the Regional Business Conference supported the discovery of new business partnerships by providing participating foreign companies with the chance of pitch for and business-match with Japanese companies, including member companies of Yokohama’s unique life science-related network: Life Innovation Platform (LIP) Yokohama.

Both the invited foreign companies and participating local companies praised the program, citing high quality business negotiations, and representatives of the invited companies commented that it was a valuable chance to see and consider Yokohama as a business destination, and that it opened up new ideas for market expansion.

Participating Foreign Companies:

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