The European tour that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made the last week reveals the interest with which Japan looks to the countries of "New Europe" The approaching milestone entry into the European Union: after a first stop in Berlin, the next two have brought the Japanese prime minister in Warsaw and Prague.
Japanese investments, which have always been in the EU (and particularly in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France), one of the preferred destinations, have long begun to increasingly directed towards the countries of Eastern Europe, characterized by the presence of skilled labor cheap and excellent growth prospects and also provide valuable access to the enlargement of the European market.
Koizumi visited by the two countries, Poland and the Czech Republic have grown between 2001 and 2002, Japanese direct investment by 15, 9% and 58.4% (over the same period in Germany declined 11 , 9%). The 110 Japanese companies currently operating in the Czech Republic have so far invested, particularly in the automotive sector and in the electronics, more than $ 2 billion, a figure that does not take into account the investment by $ 1.5 billion projected by Toyota Motors together with the French group PSA Peugeot Citroen, aimed to meet at Kolin, near Prague, one factory last generation able to build, starting in 2005, about 300,000 cars per year. Already, the country of the Rising Sun is the third largest foreign investor in the Czech Republic, but the trend shows that its role is bound to grow further.
The Japanese interest in Poland is more recent. On the political front, attention is invited to Tokyo to Warsaw by the weight that Poland is likely to have the EU enlarged. "This visit is a sign of attention to a country that, after enlargement, will be with Spain, the fifth 'institutional power' of Europe," said Japanese Foreign Minister Jiro Okuyama. Koizumi is no coincidence that during a meeting with Prime Minister Leszek Miller has suggested the dispatch of Japanese troops in the area under Polish control. But the discussions dealt with in the first place the way forward to strengthen the economic ties between the two economies. Currently in Japan, with approximately $ 600 million, is only the eighteenth foreign investor in Poland, and international trade between the two countries, amounting in 2002 to $ 1.1 billion (with a passive Warsaw $ 900 billion), is still weak. But these figures are in 2001 and 2002 (the year in which investment Nipponese showed a peak of about 352 million dollars) have shown a strong upward trend.
And a push on the accelerator will give its enlargement: once in the EU countries of Eastern Europe will benefit from the bilateral agreements between Brussels and Tokyo that allowed the strong development of economic relations between Japan and the European Union .
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