A small chamber with lots of ambition
2-33-20-203, Tsurumaki, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 154-0016
Tel: 03-5450-7207 • Fax: 03-5450-7208
E-mail: fccj@gol.com
Board of Directors
President: Marko Saarelainen, Honka Japan Inc.
Vice-President: Hirokuni Yoshida, Outokumpu K.K.
Directors: Kaj Forsell, Finland Trade Center, Finpro
Masaoki Fujita, Coil Center Fujita Co., Ltd.
Petri Hautakangas, Nokia Siemens Networks Japan Corp.
Tuomo Kuuppo, Stora Enso Japan K.K.
Pekka Laitinen, Septem Partners
Mika Mäkinen, mikAdvance
Shigeyoshi Noto, Foresight Marketing K.K.
Sakari Romu, FINNAIR
Yoshinori Sano, Azabu Tax Corporation
Veli Solehmainen, Vaisala K.K.
Hiroaki Sugawara, Finn Corporation
With just 62 corporate and 16 individual members, the Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Japan (FCCJ) is one of the smaller European chambers in Tokyo. But like Finland itself (which has a population of 5.3 million people, three million less than in the 23 Tokyo wards), the FCCJ punches well above its weight. The chamber is run by part-time executive director Clas-Göran Bystedt. President Marko Saarelainen modestly describes the chamber as a “one man show”, but they provide a raft of activities and services to rival much larger organisations.
Established in April 1999, the FCCJ took over from the Finnish Business Council, an informal gathering of Finnish business people in Tokyo. Finland’s trade-relations with Japan date back to the 1920s with exports of Japanese pottery and silk. Trade in the opposite direction began with Finnish wood pulp in the 1930s, though it was another half century before the first Finnish companies established their own offices in Japan.
Finland’s main exports to Japan are still forest-based, including paper, board, timber, plywood and log houses. Finnish forest companies have long had a leading position in imports to Japan’s highly competitive printing- and packaging- paper market. And Finnish companies have an even larger share of timber imports for construction and house building with their Nordic spruce and pine.
Yet, wood and paper account for 40% of Finnish exports to Japan, compared with 20% of Finland’s overall global exports. High-tech industry exports, for which the country has become well known worldwide, are less developed. Finnish mobile communications giant Nokia did reasonably well in Japan during the 1990s, but faced with competition from advanced third-generation phones, they made a strategic decision to withdraw from the handset market.
Nokia Siemens Networks, however, remains a strong player in the Japanese telecommunications market. And recently Nokia’s luxury arm, Vertu, have begun selling their ¥20 million mobile phones here. Bystedt hopes that the release of fourth-generation phones will enable Nokia to try the handset market again.
Business relations between Japan and Finland are good. “The Japanese are very easy for Finns to do business with. We have many similar characteristics,” says Bystedt. “I tell newcomers to Japan that if they have ever done any business in America they should forget everything.” FCCJ President Saarelainen agrees, citing contracts as an example. There’s little going back to the documents to niggle over details. “Once you agree,” he says, “that’s it.”
The huge size of the Japanese market, however, can be a challenge for Finnish companies. “The interest is sometimes bigger than we can respond to,” says Bystedt. Finnish companies may also undersell themselves out of eagerness to enter the Japanese market when first approached by large potential partners.
There are only 40 Finnish-affiliated companies in Japan, only one third of which are run by Finns. Consequently, the chamber works hard to reach out to the Japanese companies that make up one third to half of their membership. FCCJ activities include regular monthly luncheons with keynote speakers. A recent guest was Finnish Minister of Finance Jyrki Katainen. Upcoming speakers include J. Front Retailing CEO Tsutomu Okuda, who is the Honorary Consul of Finland in Osaka.
The chamber also participates in social events including a Japanese version of the Ryder Cup: The North America–Europe Golf Challenge in Japan. Europe won the last event, which the FCCJ helped organise, although the Americans are still one win ahead.
Last but not least, the chamber produces the most extensive business confidence survey of foreign business in Japan, collecting replies from over 400 overseas-affiliated companies. “We expect the next report to show a significant increase in business confidence,” says Bystedt.