Greater Manchester Japan Mission 2025: day two

Following a first day anchored by civic and diplomatic meetings in Tokyo, the second day of the Greater Manchester Japan mission 2025 saw the delegation make the most of opportunities to engage with key Japanese businesses and forge opportunities for further trade and investment.

The day focused on expounding a strong case to Japanese businesses about Greater Manchester as a leading destination for investment, innovation, and talent; building on existing relationships and showing Greater Manchester’s expertise in cyber, digital, and low carbon.

Cyber roundtable

The day began with a Cyber Roundtable at the British Embassy in Tokyo, focused on bridging the gap between the public and private sectors in this sector.

Bringing together key Japanese public and private sector stakeholders as well as leaders from academia, the roundtable discussed public-private partnerships and cyber skills development.

The roundtable was an opportunity to use Greater Manchester as a case-study, showing how has worked to build a world-class cyber ecosystem. However, it also allowed leaders to discuss the need for increased collaboration between the UK and Japan if we are to address the growing risk of cyber-attacks and improve digital resilience.

With a rapidly growing digital sector and one of the leading regions in the UK for AI and Cyber; Greater Manchester has a growing strength in this area that is powering jobs, startups and innovation-led growth.

Mayor Andy Burnham speaks at the cyber roundtable

The roundtable allowed Andy Burnham Mayor of Greater Manchester and Cllr Bev Craig Leader of Manchester City Council to share our region’s ambition to build a flourishing cyber ecosystem between the public sector, private sector and academia with a cyber workforce of 30,000 by 2035.

Discussion centred around how to build a diverse and capable workforce through apprenticeships, professional standards and raising awareness of the sector.

Across the wider delegation

Members of the delegation, including Mayor Andy Burnham, Jo Ahmed MBE, Rachel Eyre (MIDAS), and Ben Grunfeld (Electricity North West) meet with KEPCO

University of Manchester’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) visit Honda

Following the cyber round table, the delegation began travels from Tokyo to Osaka via bullet train to continue the mission. Before, during, and after travelling, several meetings and activities took place:

Some of the delegation visited Kansai Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) to discuss opportunities for further investment in the energy and net zero sector; showcasing our pipeline and current programmes that aim to stimulate investment;
Co-operatives UK – who will host a round table event at as part of the EXPO programme later this week – met with the Japanese Consumer Co-ops Union;
Manchester City Football Club visited the Rugby International school giving boys and girls taster sessions on how they run they coach at their academy;
and representatives from the University of Manchester’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) visited the Honda automotive R&D site in Utsonomiya.

Daikin meeting

Parties present for the meeting with Daikin

Then, it was time to head to the EXPO 2025 site to meet with Daikin, one of the key sponsors of this mission.

The meeting aimed to build on the success of the landmark two-year Memorandum of Understanding Greater Manchester signed with Daikin, which surpassed the target of 1,000 heat pumps deployed across Greater Manchester by 500.

The MOU also generated close to £0.5m of wider social impact including the training of college tutors to deliver heat pump courses, the roll out of curriculum content on green technologies, and heat pumps donated to the Embassy Village project in central Manchester.

During the meeting, a new long-term commitment was formalised. This collaboration agreement for the next five years will see Daikin chair the ‘Greater Manchester Low Carbon Heating Industry Group’, which will bring together willing organisations from the low carbon heating industry, including manufacturers, installers and trade bodies, to collaborate, innovate, and accelerate the deployment of low carbon heating technologies across the city-region.

Formalisation of new long-term commitment with Daikin

The group will pave the way for new companies to make similar commitments to Daikin’s investment in our region and will help deliver targets set in the Greater Manchester Five-Year Environment Plan (5YEP) 2025-2030, including the delivery of 64,000 low carbon heating systems by 2030.

The evening was a chance for the Greater Manchester delegation to experience and explore various sponsored sites within the enormously impressive EXPO 2025 site.