Messages from people who support the seminar- PREX Island

PREX Members Messages
All those who support the seminars

PREX has obtained the cooperation of various groups, institutions and companies to hold its seminar programs that match the needs of their participant. Now, on this page, we would like you to listen to the voices of people at the trip destination sites and an interpreter who assisted with the Financial and Technological Support for Promotion of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (A) seminar, as well as the voices of PREX staff members.

Provider of support for interpretation and participants’ lives (Seminar Supervisor) Kazuko Sudani

A huge amount of trust from seminar participants

The work of a seminar supervisor covers a wide range, from interpreting for lectures to keeping watch on the physical condition of seminar participants. I provide assistance so the participants, who come from different countries, have a more fulfilling stay in Japan. During the lectures, I give explanations concerning Japan’s distinctive business practices and culture so that the content becomes easier to understand. The Financial and Technological Support for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Promotion Course is a seminar that has assisted public sector officials from more than 60 countries for over six years. PREX’s seminars feature new challenges to deepen understanding, attentive support and warm exchanges between the dispatched staff members and seminar participants. I look forward to them every year.

What makes me most happy about this job is that I can make connections with people from around the world. Many of the participants recently like Facebook.
When I tell them, “The Financial and Technological Support for Promotion of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Seminar has started for this year,” former seminar participants will help push it, writing, “That’s great.” Since many of the seminar participants come from the same organizations, some of the former ones send me souvenirs via the people scheduled to take part in seminars in the following year. So links seem to exist among participants, along the lines of, “Best regards to Ms. Sudani.” After they have returned home to Indonesia, Mongolia, Tajikistan, etc., some of the participants re-visit Japan to see everybody once again.

Monodzukuri Business Information-center Osaka (MOBIO), a cooperating organization Yoko Koyama

Wanting to connect Osaka’s ‘Monodzukuri’ SMEs with the world

Osaka is the home of many of Japan’s leading manufacturing companies. A wide variety of SMEs possessing high levels of technical capabilities can be found here. MOBIO is a “comprehensive monodzukuri support hub,” which was established by the Osaka Prefectural Government. These companies’ outstanding technologies and products can be viewed here either in the form of the originals or on display panels at Japan’s largest permanent exhibition hall. Around 400 organizations visit this space each year. About a third come from overseas, including the participants of PREX’s seminars.

One of MOBIO’s missions is to call attention inside and outside Japan to the manufacturing companies in the prefecture. Therefore, we are very grateful that Osaka’s companies are being made known to government administrators and people with corporate ties from around the world through our cooperation with the seminar activities. We are always explaining the structure of SME support being carried out by MOBIO, while also being mindful of the seminar participants’ problem awareness. For the management seminars for Laos and Vietnam, we have called out to SMEs in Osaka and held exchanges with an eye toward business matching. The usual language problems crop up and there is some hesitation. But when we go ahead, we manage to get by and carry on with the discussions. Contact points with local people and information are limited for Osaka Prefecture, as local overseas representative offices run by regional Japanese governments have been shut down or scaled back. I feel that a “network where faces are visible” with the seminar participants from around the world would be really important, with MOBIO supporting companies in Osaka.

Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan (SME Support, JAPAN), a cooperating organization Kazuki Nishina

Conveying policies that support Japan’s SMEs

I belonged to the International Center of SME Support, JAPAN, until June this year, in charge of lectures on business summaries of the organization for the JICA seminars. I worked on the seminar lectures during a roughly 2 1/2 year period a total of 30 times. That included seminar courses commissioned to PREX. When providing explanations to the seminar participants, I helpfully combined them with the policies’ objectives, historical background of when they were launched and other information, in addition to concrete explanations on assistance policies. 

Many of the seminar participants are staff members in governments or government-related institutions of a variety of different countries. So at the seminar gatherings, the stages of economic development and environments surrounding SMEs are completely different, depending on the person’s country.I explain the objectives taken up by each assistance policy in Japan and their backgrounds. I think that by comparing the situations in their own countries, the participants can probably further deepen their understanding of the assistance policies. 

The policies implemented by SME Support, JAPAN, cover a vast range. In addition, questions from the participants can reach into policies of other institutions from time to time. It’s tough to get to the point where these issues can be generally understood. Even so, it is a good opportunity to expand my view to the kind of activities being done in other departments and institutions. 
(He is second from the right in the photo.)

• Date : November 24, 2015
• Name : Kazuko Sudani san,Yoko Koyama san,Kazuki Nishina san