[Event Report] Meet Team Norway

On Thursday, the 27th of September the “Meet Team Norway” event was held at the WeWork offices in Shiroyama Trust Tower. The purpose of the event was to showcase the collaboration within Team Norway and the team’s goals for the future.

The guests were welcomed by chairperson of NCCJ and MC for the night, Svend Haakon Kristensen, who highlighted Team Norway’s shared goal of an expanded Norwegian community in Japan. He also pointed out how it is important to reinforce this relationship regularly with new members continually joining. On this note, the Ambassador designate Kristin Iglum was welcomed to give the first presentation of the night.

Ambassador designate Ms. Kristin Iglum thanked everyone for the warm welcome she had received so far in Japan. She argued that the most important part of Team Norway are the companies and that the embassy is determined to being a good support to them. She highlighted how Norway may be a small country but a strong collaboration within the community makes Norway look stronger to its partners. She went on to introduce the employees and the goals the embassy is working towards now, such as an economic collaboration agreement, green partnership agreement and a bilateral social security agreement with Japan. The Ambassador concluded by pointing out how Japan and Norway’s strong relationship is often mentioned and that her goal is to work on maintaining this strong relationship in the future as well.

Johan Kvalheim from the Norwegian Seafood Council went on to talk about Norwegian export of fish to Japan. He described a stable yet somewhat stagnant flow which they are working towards expanding by pushing more mackerel to the market and promoting salmon for cooking.

The presentation was followed by Marianne Berg in Innovation Norway who introduced the rest of the team and their commitment to helping companies enter the Japanese market. She talked about Innovation Norway’s goal of increasing Norwegian export to Japan with 50% by 2030 and the importance of collaboration with Japan when it comes to green energy, research, and education.

Finally, Valentina, the general manager at NCCJ introduced project manager Akiko Shiono and the new student intern Sonja Jensen. She talked about how there are currently around 2000 employees working in the NCCJ companies and that the next goal is to get more than 100 members. She further emphasized the high satisfaction rate within the chamber and NCCJ’s continued commitment to being a good support for the Norwegian business community in Japan. A toast was made by trustee Hiroaki Kitano, managing director at NAVTOR, who welcomed Ambassador Kristin Iglum and thanked for many fruitful years within the Norwegian business community. The rest of the evening was spent networking and catching up with new and old acquaintances.

Overall, the event was a wonderful opportunity for the Norwegian community in Japan to gather and learn more about the tasks of the different organizations in Team Norway and to further strengthen the ties within the community.