Doing Business in Japan

Steve established his first company in Japan 20 years ago, and this experience helped identify the opportunity to support other international companies to enter this complex market. Business Link Japan was then incorporated as a vehicle to do just that.

In 2013 Steve established Export to Japan, an NPO (Non-Profit Organisation) online digital platform. This operation was recognised for unique innovation and has gone on to support thousands of UK businesses to sell their products and services in Japan.

Throughout his career, Steve has worked tirelessly and passionately to promote trade and commerce between the UK and Japan, generating tens of millions of pounds for the UK economy.

James Myatt is a highly regarded language professional whose career began 20 years ago in Japan. He worked for Nagaoka City as an English teacher before relocating to France. James and his wife founded Word Connection, establishing offices in both France and Japan. The company has built an impressive reputation for providing superior Japanese translation and localisation services. James' enthusiasm, openness and dedication have seen him build an extensive client base and many trusted partnerships.

Kaori Myatt is a translator, localizer and creative writer who is based in Biarritz, France and who is a native Japanese speaker. She has successfully translated many leading social media sites and apps into Japanese and is both a chartered linguist and a certified legal translator.

Currently, Kaori manages her own translation and localisation company, Word Connection , while acting as a consultant for various social media companies. In addition, she serves as a director at Japanese Translation Federation and mentors TCLoc MA in Localisation students at Université de Strasbourg together with translation students attending the University of East Anglia. A talented multilingual translation services specialist, Kaori is a highly qualified professional boasting more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.

Keith Garden has a long experience in exporting and has been exporting tea and herbal tea to Japan for over 20 years. Only Natural Products manufactures high quality and organic herbal, fruit and speciality teas under its brands Dr Stuarts and Higher Living. The company first started exporting in 2001. The company now exports to over 50 countries including Japan, Australia, and South Africa etc. and exports are over 90% of the company’s sales.

Keith says: “we have always looked to promote our products abroad and it’s a huge part of what we do and believe in - it helped raise our profile and gained us two Queens Awards for Exports in 2016 and 2019.” The company believes in working closely with distributors and international retailers and presenting its products with passion and strong communication.

Keith’s top exporting tip is to first visit the market, if possible, and visit as many stores and talk to as many people as possible - nothing beats being in the market and getting a feel for it.

James is Deputy Head of Trade at the British Embassy Tokyo’s Department for Business and Trade, supporting UK companies to trade with and expand to the Japanese market. He also leads the Financial, Business and Professional Services Exports Team – sectors which account for over 50% of the UK’s exports to Japan. In addition to the work to promote UK firms, the team also has a key role to support the reduction of market access challenges UK firms face when trying to access the Japanese market.

James has previously held roles leading on the renewable energy and technology sectors for the Department for Business and Trade, and also spent two years advancing UK interests in sport in the lead up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.